Heroes
by Zaknafein47
Summary: Four heroes. Four epic quests across Faerûn. And then one epic adventure where they all come together.Very long story, being written. Book 1 and 2 out of 4 are up. PG-13 for violence and some language, a few adult themes.
1. Author's Note

Author's Note disclaimer: i have no affiliation with wizards of the coast (other than my submission for the fantasy setting search) or hasbro, ed greenwood, r. a. salvatore, or any of the other various forgotten realms authors. i don't own, in any way, dungeons and dragons or any of its various aspects, including the forgotten realms. if i did, why would this be on ff.n and not in a book? This is long, boring, and essentially pointless. Feel free to skip it. "Heroes" is a LONG story. I'm not quite finished with it, but Book 1 alone is 47 pages in (mostly) 12-pt font and 1-inch margins-the equivalent of over 100 pages in standard paperback form. Book 2 is just a little shorter. I'm planning on having 4 books.this is a colossal writing project, easily the biggest I've ever done (Book 1 is only 8 full-size pages shorter than my longest story, Assassins, which I took down from this site due to a large number of people who didn't like it {myself included}). My overall plan for this story is to introduce three main characters (one per each of the first books), plus several supporting characters. In the last book, they will meet up to fight a common enemy. I've heard that the various Star Wars "Tales Of." books do a similar thing, though I've never read any. For the first book, I got a LOT of good ideas from RA Salvatore, wonderful man that he is. Especially the battle choreography as I've never even held a scimitar (or, really, any real sword), let alone fought with them. Salvatore did some really great things in his fights with Drizzt, which I borrowed some elements from. With Aedia (book 2), I was moving onto both familiar and unfamiliar territory. Being a red-black belt in taekwondo helped with my understanding of the fights. Although I've never fought with swords, I have done a lot of martial arts sparring, both contact and not. I don't really know much about medieval armor, though, so when she fought armored people, it was kind of hard. I tried to use as few of these encounters as I could. It was harder, though, as well. I had to shift into a completely different mentality-elven, as I've never done a character that wasn't raised as a human, and female, as I'm a guy. I hope I've done a decent job with that. Fae is a weird character, and though I'm having fun with him, I expect his book to be shorter than the others. The last book, where they all meet up, though, I have a lot of cool ideas for. Since this is such a massive project, you can clearly see my writing style changing (at least, I can.)-for the better, I hope. I started this way back in.probably March 2002. Now, in September, I've gotten a little over halfway through. But I was this far in early July, and do to a series of problems I haven't been able to write since then, till now. And I won't be able to write much now. There's one person who's helped me a lot throughout this project. She has like a million names, but her real name is Stardust and her penname is Elven Shadow Goddess now-her profile page is http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=150890. She made Shadow and a few minor characters throughout Book 2, and is really as much of an author in Book 3 than I am-she made Roxy, Draque, and Skye, three of the four main good guys. Wow. That was long. Well, I hope you like it. If you have any questions or comments, either review (PLEASE REVIEW) and/or email me at dougal@math.sunysb.edu. Thanks, and I hope you like it. H e r o e s 


	2. The Blademaster

Book One

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the blademaster

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Prologue

The boy turned, sending the Sembian noble a piercing, hating stare. His burning blue eyes seemed to spear holes through the viewer's skull.

Malark Tallstag looked at the boy a moment, contemplating this impudent one. He was young, about ten or eleven years (Malark didn't bother to remember which). His spirit still hadn't been broken, since he had been bought just a few years earlier. You would think he'd learn.… But what else would you expect from a slave boy like him?

"Come here," he said. As the boy did—slowly and reluctantly—Malark pulled out his much-used whip.

The boy refused to cry as the lasher beat him. He had a strong spirit—good for a fighter, but one of the worst traits possible for a slave of the lasher Malark Tallstag.

The noble whipped the boy savagely, leaving long red marks on his back. He flipped the slave, looking at his fine-featured Cormyrean face.

The whip cracked down across the young boy.

****

Part One—Cormanthor

**Chapter I**

The slave boy harvested the corn, slowly and painfully. He didn't have a name—no slave deserved one, or at least that was what he had been told—but he called himself Miklos. An important person named Miklos Selkirk had once visited, and the slave had taken an immediate liking to the man.

He remembered that day as well as if it were yesterday—better, in fact. He often relived it, and he did so now…

The slave boy finished his harvest early, dropping off the corn in the deposit bin. He went to get a drink, but the bucket they used was empty. Thirsty beyond belief, the slave entered the master's house to get some water.

He had been young then. He didn't really know how old he was, but he couldn't really remember anything before then, and there had been three summers since. Anyway, he was young and new enough that he didn't really know how horrible a beating he would get if he dared enter the master's house.

He walked down the grand halls, incredibly better than the small slave quarters he had to share with three others. Beautiful tapestries lined the walls; paintings hung every few feet.

He came to a large room, with two men sitting down in it. One was the master, who was facing him, and the other was someone he didn't recognize. The stranger had his back to him.

The master rose to his feet, seeing the boy. He pulled out his whip.

The stranger turned, seeing him standing there. What he saw must have surprised him—a young boy, obviously underfed, standing in the doorway with a bucket in his hands. And Malark Tallstag, the lasher, coming to him with whip in hand.

"What are you doing?" the stranger demanded.

"Pay no worry. This slave needs to be disciplined. Please excuse me—I will be back in a moment."

"Slave?!" the stranger asked, obviously surprised. "He's just a little boy! Why are you beating him?"

The master said, gritting his teeth, "I paid good money for this slave. He's mine, even though I'm starting to regret that decision."

"Fine then," the stranger said. "I'll buy him from you."

He later found that the kind stranger's name was Miklos Selkirk. Malark refused to sell him, but Miklos managed to stop the slave boy from getting such a bad beating, and got him plenty of good food and drink. For that, he was grateful.

Of course, as soon as Miklos left, Malark beat his slave for hours.

The slave went to his small room. The slave quarters had no beds, were small, and were four to a room. Four slaves slept practically touching each other, and often they were actually on top of each other (or something similar). They smelled of sweaty, overworked slaves. There wasn't even a real floor—only cold, hard ground.

Miklos's particular room was all boys of about his age, when their race's years were converted. The other slaves were a dwarf, a little older than him; one of the strongheart halflings from Luiren to the south, about his age; and a moon elf from Cormanthor, a few years younger than him. Actually, he was about seventy years older than he was, but…

It was still early, so Miklos went out back of the cabin, to the small grove of trees. He took down a stick, pretending it was a sword.

The stick felt heavy and clumsy when used two-handed, so he found a smaller stick. Rather than use just one, he took another, using both sticks with skill and grace.

Over a few tendays, he got much better at dual-wielding the sticks. He found two perfect sticks—about the same length and weight, and curved slightly at the end, like a scimitar. He eventually invited the other boys to join him.

The dwarf used a large stick, simulating a greatsword. The halfling decided to use a single medium-length stick, a shortsword, just small enough for him to use comfortably one-handed. He also used a small shield from a large piece of bark. The elf used a longsword stick and a shortsword stick, which were easier to use than two longsword or scimitar sticks at once.

They had mock battles every night, teams and styles shifting constantly. After a tenday or so, they found the teams that seemed right—Miklos and the elf on one, the halfling and the dwarf on the other.

One night, about dusk, they were having a mock battle. Miklos was attacking the halfling relentlessly, batting away his sword and coming in for the "kill" with the other stick. With the halfling's shield, though, that tactic didn't work so well. He would just block the stab, and come back with his longsword. It worked very well on the dwarf, though, as he had but one sword, even though it was harder to knock around.

The dwarf charged in at Miklos, and he was barely able to avoid his relentless charge by ducking into a roll, coming up with a stick to the halfling's back.

The elf came in to help. With the halfling out of the way, they were about to finish off the dwarf…

Miklos noticed a dark figure standing by a nearby tree.

A whip came out, grabbing both of his sticks out of his hands. He started to shout, but stifled it just in time.

The others were disarmed as well. As the dark figure stepped forward, Miklos's fears were confirmed.

He was the master.

That night, Miklos couldn't even lie down to sleep. The beating on his back, stomach, and both sides had been too brutal. He stood, and eventually managed to fall asleep standing up. The other boys couldn't replicate that feat, and lay on the cold, moist earth painfully.

Work the next day seemed impossible, every little movement impossibly painful. But they had to do it, for fear of being beaten more.

Miklos looked up, about noon, and saw a horse galloping down the road. Its rider was cloaked in blue, wearing a chain shirt, and had a rapier sheath displayed prominently.

The slave recognized it instantly as Miklos Selkirk, the nicest person he had ever known.

The fighter didn't stop at the main house, instead walking around to the other side of the house where Malark watched his slaves work.

"I've come here to buy some slaves from you," he said promptly and without any introduction. Miklos's heart shot up.

"Which ones?" the lasher grunted in return.

"The one I stopped you from beating three years ago," the fighter said quickly. "And a few others, I'll choose them."

"Fine." The two began bargaining over his price, but Miklos didn't hear. He would be free! Freedom!

No more being beat viciously with a whip every other day! No more long, hard days of harvest! No more days without food or drink!

Sweet freedom!

**Chapter II**

The newly freed slave followed Miklos out of the plantation. He had never left his former master's property before. He stared in amazement at the massive, rolling plains that surrounded the lands he had always lived on.

With him were several other people, all the young former slaves and some of the older ones. He was walking to the left of and slightly behind Miklos.

"I want you all to know that I'm setting you free. You can go wherever you want, but I'll lead you to Daerlun and give you some money."

"Thank you," he whispered to his savior.

"Don't think anything of it," Miklos said. He put his arm on the freed slave's shoulder, and he grimaced in pain.

"What's wrong?" he asked, quickly withdrawing his hand.

"The master beat me," he said quietly. "And three other boys about my age."

Miklos pulled the party to a stop. "Take off your shirt," he said.

The boy did, revealing the fresh wounds from the night before, and scars from many, many older ones.

His voice quiet yet powerful, Miklos asked, "Does anyone else have any wounds like this?"

They all revealed horrible wounds, but none quite as bad as the Cormyrean boy's.

"What about your legs?" he asked. Did he beat you there, too?"

When he rolled up his pant legs, Miklos gasped in surprise and got him onto his horse.

"I'll get you all to a healer," Miklos said, clearly shocked at how badly they were treated.

An hour or so later, they stopped for a rest. The Cormyrean boy stood, unable to lie down because of his still-fresh wounds.

Miklos stood next to him. "What's your name?" he asked.

"As slaves, we were told we didn't deserve names." He paused. "But I call myself Miklos. After you."

"Why, thank you. I don't know if you remember…"

"How could I forget? Three years ago?"

"Yes, that was it." Miklos looked down, somewhat embarrassed.

The newly freed slave told him what his life had been like, as a slave to the lasher Malark Tallstag. 

When they reached Daerlun, Miklos Selkirk gave the freed slaves a hundred gold each, and directions to get out of Sembia. The newly freed Cormyrean boy, though, decided to stay with his namesake for a little while.

Miklos was fascinated by the huge city, though it was somewhat frightening. After a few hours in the city, Miklos was more than ready to leave the loud, crowded place—especially when a lightning bolt aimed at a group of people not far from him nearly killed him. He was just barely out of the blast.

The two traveled from Daerlun the three hundred fifty miles (by road) to the capital of Sembia, Ordulin, where Selkirk's home was.

It took them about six days to reach the capital on horseback. The rolling plains, great river, and the few forests were beautiful, so much better than looking at endless rows of corn, working to harvest them.

Everything marking his body from his former master's whip—scars, fresh wounds, and everything else—was gone, thanks to a few minutes with a cleric. His skin was smooth, like it hadn't been for who knows how long.

The capital was much smaller than Daerlun had been. Ordulin was still a new city, though it was done.

They went up along a curving road through the city, which was much less crowded and quieter than Daerlð@'ÛThey came upon a grand house presently.

"This is mine," Selkirk said. Miklos realized his mouth was open in amazement, and closed it.

Selkirk unlocked the door and let Miklos in. He wandered through the house, staring for a moment at his reflection in a full-wall mirror.

His blond hair was longish, though it only went to his shoulders. His face was notably different than a normal Sembian's, which he truly realized for the first time. Brilliant blue eyes burned back at him in the mirror. He also noticed a hint of stranger features—his ears were more pointed than the average human's, and he had a tinge of bluish coloring near his chin and cheeks. He was very thin, but did have muscle. He was still short, not having started really growing just yet. He was about five feet tall, he guessed.

Miklos went off further through the house, finding a large room completely empty except for a large wooden cabinet.

Selkirk appeared behind him. "Somehow, I knew you would find your way here. This is the weapons room. If you want, you can start your training now."

When Miklos nodded enthusiastically, Selkirk opened the cabinet. It was full of weapons of many types, from rapiers to daggers to scythes.

Miklos immediately took down the scimitars. They were noticeably heavier than the sticks he had used, but still felt right in his hands.

He swung them in a dual pincer, a move he had found useful in his fights with the other boys. He went immediately into a complicated routine, using techniques he had learned with sticks against other boys with sticks.

"Wow," Selkirk breathed. "He's talented."

When Miklos finished, Selkirk nodded to him. "That's amazing Where did you learn to use scimitars like that?"

He smiled. "With some sticks."

The next day, Selkirk took Miklos to a weaponsmith.

"I need you to make a special order for me," Selkirk told him. "I need two scimitars for this young man. Let him help you design them."

Miklos helped the smith in creating the custom pair of weapons. He got them to just the right weight and length, and found the perfect type of steel for the purpose.

The boy watched while the smith forged his weapon. It took time, lots of it, but Miklos sat there patiently, waiting.

When his weapons were made, Miklos proclaimed them perfect and thanked the smith profusely. Selkirk, of course, paid for the weapons.

"You have your melee weapon, and that's good. But foes won't always be right next to you. You need a ranged weapon of some type."

Miklos nodded, seeing the wisdom in what he said.

"You've got a couple choices. A bow, either a shortbow or a longbow. A crossbow—light, heavy, or hand. Or a spring-loaded gauntlet, a gauntlet you can use to shoot crossbow bolts with about as much force as a hand crossbow."

Back in the weapons room, Selkirk opened a door that led to another room, the archery range. Miklos tried his hand with all of the weapons, but found he wasn't that great with any of them. He decided, finally, on the shortbow.

"I'm really not that great with two scimitars," Selkirk said. "If you wanted, I could train you, but you'd be a lot better with someone else. I have a few people in mind."

Miklos nodded. "I'd like to meet those people."

This first possible trainer was a tall, thin man, looking much like any Sembian in as good a shape as he was. His name was Gorstag Dundragon, and he wore what looked to be a set of mithril chain, wielding two unique gauntlets—they could extend blades a few inches or shoot crossbow bolts with the flick of a wrist. He seemed like a decent swordsman, but Miklos didn't like him very much.

The second was a woman who looked Cormyrean, like Miklos (or so Selkirk said) named Shandri Amblecrown. She was a ranger in cheap leather, and used two longswords. She seemed to be a great person, and Miklos really liked her, in addition to being very skilled with her weapon of choice.

The last one was another dual wielder, but he had a strange choice of weapon. This intimidating man used two spiked chains, and was one of the few known as the masters of chains. Miklos found him unnerving. His name was Fodel Shedov.

His choice was easy—Shandri. Miklos doubted what knowledge Fodel could impart on him, and was somewhat afraid of it. Gorstag seemed a good fighter, but again, the style of fighting with his gauntlets was very different from with two scimitars. Shandri's longswords were pretty close to his scimitars, so she could train him much more easily.

The Cormyrean boy returned to Selkirk's home for the night, then said goodbye to his namesake and savior, leaving the huge capital for the forests to the north.

Shandri led the boy north out of Sembia, the only land he had ever known. The pair went through Tassledale and then Featherdale, while the ranger taught her apprentice about living in the wilderness (which they did while Shandri led them off the road). They passed Sharburg, an ancient elven fortress, without any incident. They crossed through Featherdale and over the Blackfeather bridge, going through Battledale up Rauthauvyr's Road, without any major events.

The ranger led her student into Cormanthor, the great elven forest. It was a dangerous place, but she was confident she could avoid any real threats.

Shandri and Miklos erected a makeshift shelter for the night, made a fire, and went to sleep. They took shifts on watch, Miklos taking the first few hours and Shandri the rest.

Miklos sat near the fire, looking into the forest. How much had happened since he had been beaten for mock battles with sticks…. It seemed years ago, but he knew it was only a few tendays past.

Something caught his eye, moving near a tree. He rose and drew both scimitars, watching as the thing charged into the firelight.

It was a six-foot long, feral-looking badger. As it charged, it tried to claw him. Miklos evaded the blow.

He struck back with both scimitars, hitting only once and scoring a light hit along its flank. The badger struck back, and Miklos took a bad stomach wound, and another bite to the shoulder. Everything went black.

Miklos awoke to a groggy dawn, birds chirping. He sat up slowly, but Shandri laid him back down.

"That was a pretty bad hit," she said soothingly. "You'll be fine, though."

Miklos didn't feel like it. His shoulder cried out in pain, though his stomach was mostly tended to. Obviously, Shandri has spent much more time there.

He was picked up and moved, slowly, into the makeshift shelter. He spent a day or so there, then was well enough to move around.

As soon as he was fully healed, Shandri drew both of her blades. "You need some practice with your blades. Let's go."

She lunged at him, and he sidestepped, attempting to hit her on the back with the flat of his blade. She slapped away his blade, though, then the other, and had both swords pressed against his chest.

"You need some work," she said.

"Look down," he responded, smiling.

One scimitar was pressed lightly against her stomach, the other on her hip.

"You still would have died," she said. "Always remember this—your life is the most important thing. Your opponent's death is a secondary focus."

Miklos nodded, seeing the wisdom in that.

"He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day," she stated. "As long as you live, you can come back and kill your foe later. The only exception to this is when if your foe doesn't die _now_, he's going to cause lots of horrible things. Then sacrificial fighting is okay."

The years passed, Miklos training against both his master and the monsters of the forest. When he was about fifteen (he still didn't know his real age), four years later, the young Sembian ranger of Cormyrean descent was declared a real ranger, able to fend for himself in the wild.

His master let him make a life for himself in the woods of Cormyr, learning the lessons of life the hardest—and best—way: experience.

The ranger was illiterate, penniless, and didn't even know that it was Mirtul in the Year of the Tankard. No surprise, considering his background. But nonetheless, he was incredibly skilled with his two scimitars, and an average shot with his shortbow. Even wearing cheap leather armor, he could be hard to hit. Very few rangers of his experience were as apt to survive in a forest, and his wolf companion had been found not through magic, but through pure animal handling skill.

For all those reasons, his master set him loose upon the world.

She had no idea what she was doing.

**Chapter III**

Miklos walked through the Cormanthor forest, keeping a sharp eye out for enemies, which were all too common. Drow, elves, and monsters roamed the woods, and far too many would attack him on sight for comfort.

He noticed something strange about an enormous oak just ahead of him, and stopped walking.

A beautiful woman stepped out from behind another nearby tree. Her hair was a striking emerald green. Her lightly tanned skin was beautifully complimented by the tight dress she wore. She was beautiful.

She smiled at him. "Hello," she said, her voice as amazing as her body. He found himself irresistibly attracted to her.

He found himself, not entirely against his will (though he hadn't intended to), stepping forward. He found his hands on her skin. His attraction increased tenfold.

Once her dress was gone, Miklos found her much more attractive. She was on the ground, and he was too.

Midway through, with Miklos's body wonderfully entwined with the dryad's, he stopped.

What was he doing? He hadn't tried to do anything with her but talk. Sure, he found her attractive, but…

Miklos untangled their limbs, collected his belongings, and strode purposefully away.

Once he was safely out of her range, as a dryad couldn't stray very far from her oak, he put all of his clothes, armor, and weapons back on. He walked in the same direction he had been going before, but careful to circumnavigate the oak.

As he walked, he remembered his wolf, Litnij. He found him striding right behind him. Miklos reassured him, as he had been obviously scared by his friend's strange behavior. Litnij growled in pleasure.

Miklos had made camp in a small grove for the night. He had0778en the first watch, and then Litnij watched faithfully for intruders.

Miklos awoke to him growling. He burst out of the tent, scimitars in hand, and saw a strange creature.

It looked like an elf, but it had wings, and its skin had a golden hue to it. The winged elf was female, a bow and a quiver across her back, and a sword strapped at her side.

"Oloré," she said in greeting.

"Oloré," he responded, though not as automatically as any other native of the Inner Sea would. "Who are you?"

"My name is Talindra Eveningfall," she responded. "I am an avariel, a winged elf. I'm an archer."

The Cormyrean responded, "My names is Miklos. I was born in Cormyr, but sold as a slave to a wealthy noble in Sembia. I was later bought, freed, and trained as a ranger. I just recently began living on my own."

"I'm seeking some help, to wipe out a nest of bugbears to the south of here. They've been harassing nearby elves," she said.

"I would be glad to help," he said immediately, as he calmed Litnij, who was still a little upset by the strange girl.

It was almost dawn, and so Miklos set out following the winged elf, who was kind enough to walk instead of fly. Along the way, he gathered some berries for a light breakfast.

"They're just up there," she said quietly. The ranger nodded and pulled out his scimitars as she notched an arrow.

"No. Shoot first," she whispered, pointing to the bow on his back.

He nodded and did that. There was a hill, and, the avariel explained, it had a dip in the middle of it. The bugbears were camped out in there.

Talindra fluttered up to rest lightly on a tree. She signaled to Miklos to shoot the monsters as soon as he saw them.

Telling the wolf to stay and guard him, Miklos shifted his aim. One arrow _twang_ed into the bugbears—there was a low, guttural moan. Several began charging at the tree where Talindra perched.

The bugbears were large and muscular, standing about seven feet tall. They wore leather armor, and held a small shield in one hand and a vicious-looking morningstar in the other. Their hides ranged from deep brown to a light tan.

Miklos shot first one, then another of his shafts into a bugbear. After a third hit, the goblinoid fell.

Talindra had fallen three in the time it took him to kill the one. He took another down, and Talindra pulled several more to them.

They killed the goblins with arrows once more. On the third pull, though, the full group of bugbears ran at them.

Miklos shot off a few arrows, then drew his scimitars. Litnij snapped at the approaching monsters, dropping one, before he went down in the crack of morningstars.

The Cormyrean slipped into an elaborate dance of blademastery, his strength sprouting from pure anger at the goblins. Parry, thrust, slash, parry, disarm, slash…

The ranger took a hit on the back, and the strength of it knocked him off balance. He used that to his advantage, though, using his momentum to slam a scimitar into another bugbear, slaying it instantly. Only one bugbear remained.

He turned to parry the blow that should have killed him, but the sheer power of the goblin knocked the scimitar out of his hand, and sent him to the ground. He looked at the cruel morningstar, trying to roll out of the way but found he couldn't—there were too many bugbear bodies littering the ground. The morningstar started to come down, faster than the eye could see…

But the bugbear dropped, dead, an arrow protruding from his chest.

Miklos stood up, and quickly went over to Litnij. He was dead.

Upset, the ranger nevertheless searched the bugbears' bodies. He found nothing of value—his armor was better, he had no skill with morningstars, and there were no other items—but for two things. There was a masterfully made longbow held by one of the bugbears, and a small gem, a deep blue sapphire, set on a silver chain around another's neck.

Talindra fluttered over to him. "You can have the bow, or if you want, the sapphire. It doesn't matter to me."

The avariel critically examined the bow. "Good workmanship," she said at last. "I'm surprised the bugbear didn't ruin it, but its perfect. I'll take the bow."

Miklos nodded and put the gem around his neck. As soon as it went on, he felt… There could be no words to describe it. It was just…wonderful. He tucked the gem under his armor, and it found a comfortable spot on his chest. 

He then went up the hill, followed by Talindra. The bugbear camp was little more than a lot of flimsy and poorly made shelters.

They searched through them quickly. No bugbears at all…

Miklos looked into one shelter, and found something totally different from what he expected.

There were two people tied up in the corner. One was a halfling man, bound up very tightly, and the other was an elven girl, also bound tight. The elf wasn't wearing clothes, though there were some next to another wall. Both seemed to have been beaten.

Miklos called Talindra over, then started by untying the elf. She ungagged herself and dressed as Miklos untied the halfling.

"Thank you," said the elf. "I am Vestele Amalith, a druid, and this is Blazaner Bramblefoot, the thief."

"The scout," the halfling corrected, somewhat angry.

"Yes, I'm sorry," Vestele apologized.

"You should be," he grumbled.

"We were traveling to Tangled Trees together," Vestele said. "We got waylaid by the bugbears and captured." She shuddered, her hand running protectively along a particularly nasty scar running from thigh to shoulder.

"Thanks for saving us," the halfling mumbled.

"Don't think anything of it," Talindra said.

The four set out north, towards Tangled Trees. Miklos told the others of his life, but none of the others gave him any further insight onto their pasts.

Tangled Trees was a complex web of treetop homes, platforms, and trails. Elves, half-elves, and a few humans wandered throughout the town, ignoring the four adventurers.

Talindra went to a building in the center of the town, and told the Cormyrean to follow. He did.

The avariel led him to a large platform, a building built on it. Walking in, he saw that it was a store. Magic weapons seemed to be the main item for sale.

Seeing a finely wrought scimitar, set in gold and with mystic runes engraved on it, Miklos whistled lowly and asked, "How much?"

Glancing over, the owner told him the price, and it was a number far beyond his limited comprehension of math.

Talindra walked up to the storekeeper, and said, "I did it. The ranger helped me."

The storekeeper frowned and looked at something under the counter. "Very well. You get the same amount, you know."

"I do," she responded.

The old elf picked up a sack and handed it to the elf. It was heavy, apparently, but she set it down on the floor before Miklos could offer to hold it.

She opened the sack. Miklos looked in, and saw that it held gold, but under the gold was a wonderfully wrought longbow.

"I'll take the bow, of course," she said. "There's fifteen hundred gold here, or there should be. The bow is worth five hundred, so you get a thousand and I get seven fifty."

The ranger nodded, his head spinning. A thousand gold!

"Where am I supposed to keep it?" he asked bluntly.

Talindra smiled. "You've got a couple choices. Buy gems or something else that will sell for almost the same, buy weapons or armor or something with it, or exchange it to platinum and carry it."

Miklos decided to spend it on an amazingly made elven chain shirt, and a pair of scimitars made by a master. He sold his old armor and blades, and had fifty gold left over. He just carried that, as it only weighed a pound.

Some time passed, spent in Tangled Trees. His avariel friend taught him the fluid language that was Elven, which would help him in his daily encounters with elves in the great forest of Cormanthor. She also taught him to read and write Common and Elven, and he learned to do the same with Chondathan from an elf named Rhistel.

Talindra also made a revelation about his heritage—apparently, one of his parents was a moon elf, probably a noble; and the other parent was a Cormyrean noble. Apparently his pointed ears and slightly blue skin told her of the former, and his fine features the other.

They went out on an occasional venture into the wilderness, taking out the odd ravaging dire animal or goblin tribe. But they didn't have any major adventures for a year or so.

Since Litnij had died, Miklos found as a companion a hawk, a small but ferocious redtail, who he called Akadi, after the goddess of air and flight. Akadi was a good companion, but found little adventure with Miklos.

Then Aravilar, the storekeeper who had hired them to wipe out the bugbear lair, approached the pair once more.

"I need your help," he said to the companions. Miklos had been carving a wooden figure of Akadi (the hawk), at which he had some skill, but stopped quickly at the prospect of adventure. Akadi herself was preening herself on a nearby branch, and Talindra relaxed nearby, wings spread.

"There's a strange creature that attacked several of my friends," he said quietly. "It is a fey'ri, an evil mixture of elf and demon, but this one has not a normal elf lineage, but drow.

"It looks like a drow, but hideously worse. It has huge demonic wings, a long, pointed tail, fine scales along its skin, and horrible flaming red eyes. The thing envelopes you in darkness, hits you with magical bolts, and then comes in and slashes you with his wicked sword. The only one I know who was strong enough to oppose him, a ranger of considerable power, nearly defeated him. Then the fiend disappeared through a dimensional door!

"But with both of you, it is possible you could beat him, with some help. Vestele and Blazaner, the two you rescued from the bugbears, have agreed to help. And of course, the reward will be substantial."

"The magical scimitar?" Talindra asked, knowing how much her friend desired it.

"Not quite," he smiled. "But with two or three adventures like this, Miklos should be able to save up enough for it."

The four walked through the majestic forest. Miklos, still awed by its beauty, had long ago realized that life here had been made for the elves, and even half-humans (as many of the Cormanthor elves called half-elves) like him had never been considered.

And in long days past, would have been forced out.

But now, with Cormanthor's elven population being only fifty thousand—and the drow seventy thousand—humans weren't removed so easily. Fully one-tenth of the population of the great forest was human, and most were actually welcomed by many of the elves that remained.

He heard a swoop of wings, and Akadi screeched. Miklos's scimitars were out in an instant, and he crouched back into a fighting stance.

Both Akadi and Vestele's wolf hung back nervously, afraid of the demonic creature before them.

It truly was horrible, exactly as Aravilar had described. The glowing red eyes especially were horrifying.

Staring in fright at the fey'ri, Miklos then saw nothing at all.

He rolled forward, trying to get out of the sphere of darkness—to no avail. He tried sidestepping quickly…

He slammed right into a tree.

Talindra fitted an arrow to her bow and let it fly, followed quickly by three more. Two missed, finding their way somewhere into the field of darkness. One shot continued on through, but the other never made its way past the field. She hoped that Miklos hadn't been hit, that it had impacted a tree.

One arrow had hit the armorless fey'ri, but the nimble demon avoided being hurt by twisting his body. But the last arrow found its mark, striking the tiefling in the chest.

He shot a magic bolt back at her, and she took it hard, in the stomach. Vestele quickly healed her, and the demon's attentions shifted.

Blazaner had been skulking around, and he finally found a good spot to strike from. He leapt from the shadow, burying his blade deep into the tiefling's back.

The demon's horrid face contorted, his features twisting in his death shriek. It lasted for only a second or so, but it was a horrible sound.

Talindra looked at the sphere of darkness, which had about a twenty-foot radius. Talindra tried to approximate the center, and walked in.

All vision disappeared, gone even to Talindra's keen night vision. There was only utter black.

"Miklos?" she asked softly.

He said quietly, "Over here."

She noticed that his voice was shaky and uncertain, so different than the brave young Sembian freed slave had always been.

She reached out her hand, and found the ranger, sitting down against a tree. She sat next to him and squeezed his hand.

The darkness brought back horrible memories for the young man, horrible things that had been suppressed in his mind. He had never remembered any of those things.

Flame-covered demons hit him with whips made of pure fire. Dark spiders scurried down walls, crawling around him, over him. Dark people with other instruments of torture beat him, whipped him, flogged him…

And the eyes. Always the glowing red eyes.

And always in the dark.

He squeezed the avariel's hand, trying to fight back the memories, push them back with images of the forest, of Akadi, Litnij, other animals, elves…

And Talindra, with her golden wonderful wings and beautiful body.

It was the last image that finally pushed back the horrible visions.

"Are you okay?" she whispered, noticing the change in his breath.

"Yes," he responded. He felt her wonderful body against his, one wing brushing gently across his back, her side against his upper arm.

He felt her breath on his shoulder. It was warm and inviting.

He turned in the darkness…

And saw Talindra's face.

The darkness was gone!

**Chapter IV**

The two stood up, blushing and turning away from their companions.

Vestele said, "Here. This is your share of the loot."

She tossed them each a few gold pieces and some gems, which both of them caught easily and put into pockets. Then the party set out, back to Tangled Trees, a good two hours away.

Aravilar gave them each a thousand gold. Talindra talked to him while Miklos went to an elf that always was looking for gems. He sold them to her, and counted up his total money. Just over two thousand three hundred.

"Anything I can afford for twenty-three hundred that would be useful?" he asked.

He smiled and picked up the magical scimitar. "You're just fifteen short."

Miklos was shocked, but counted up his extra gold. He had ten more, and once he sold the old scimitar, he'd have two and a half left.

He immediately did so, taking his brand new blade and swinging it easily.

According to Aravilar, the weapon was old, an ancient elven weapon. It had been passed down for generations among his family, and ended up in his hands, though he was hopeless with the blade.

"I can think of no one better to use this weapon than you," he said.

"I really don't want to take a family—"

"Nonsense." He grinned. "Besides, I have another. This one's name is Foebiter."

The ranger examined the fine blade more closely. Seven complicated runes, no doubt magical, were found along the blade, and another was set into the hilt. The sigils all 

appeared to be made of finely wrought gold and silver.

"Thank you," he said quietly as Foebiter slipped noiselessly into its scabbard.

Talindra looked at Miklos in Tangled Trees's communal bathing pool. He was sleekly muscled, not an ounce of fat on his agile body.

Not to mention he was wonderfully attractive.

She dropped silently out of her tree and swooped down to the entrance to the pool. She walked in, removed her clothes, and slipped into the water next to the ranger.

They were alone in the pool, and so Talindra felt no discomfort at all—far from it—when she wrapped a wing around Miklos. Their hands immediately strayed to places most elves would consider rude even for a close friend to touch, but avariel have separate customs, and Miklos had never truly been exposed to elven culture.

When those places met each other, it was pure bliss.

The wedding was elven style, with nearly all of the two thousand people of Tangled Trees attending. The ritual was in Elven, with some words Miklos didn't know, though he understood most of them.

The words he understood the best, though, he had hardly heard, as he had taken the initiative and already done what the priest had told him to do. Talindra's mouth against his was the second most wonderful feeling he had ever known. The first had occurred a month earlier, in a communal bathing pool.

Miklos was relaxing in his new treetop home. Talindra was flying somewhere above the forest, and Akadi was with her.

He looked at the forest. It was beautiful, towering trees shooting up into the sky. Because it was the beginning of spring, the leaves were just beginning to show, and flowers blossomed.

He had realized that this beauty was the work of the gods as soon as he entered. He believed that Mielikki, his goddess, had played a significant role in such a scene.

Eyes wandering from the canopy to ground level, the ranger immediately realized something was wrong.

His chain shirt was hanging just inside the door, so he put it on. While doing so, he still searched the forest for any signs of the trouble he felt so badly. He quickly donned his weapon belt, and strapped his shortbow and a quiver to his back.

The half-elf slipped from the canopy tower to the ground silently. Feet making no noise at all, but still moving at a good pace, the ranger made his way into the deep forest.

He stopped short suddenly, noticing movement to his left. Looking that way, he saw three dark forms slipping with all the grace of an elf through the woods. They wore green hooded cloaks, but he caught a glimpse of the face of one.

He had black skin.

Drow! Miklos had known they were in the forest, but they had never come near Tangled Trees in the time he had lived there…

Miklos deftly followed the drow, every bit as silent and graceful as they. The Cormyrean had found his home naturally in the forest early on, and the fact that he had lived there for five years didn't exactly hurt.

The drow were obviously headed for Tangled Trees—there could be no denying it. Miklos had to warn the town.

He slipped out from behind the drow, tracing a more direct route to Tangled Trees. His feet silently pounding on the ground, he made it to the village center quickly.

"Drow!" he shouted. "They're outside the village to the southwest! They'll be here soon!"

Tangled Trees flew into furious action. Miklos made his way towards the southwest, near his home.

The flickering glow and crackling of flames spurred him on. The fire seemed to be near his home…

He burst in on the scene, seeing the entire southwestern end of Tangled Trees aflame—including his wonderful canopy home.

Spells flew at the drow, but only a few made it through the drow's natural resistance to magic.

Animals and beasts, even an air and a water elemental—all shapeshifted forms of druids—attacked the trio of dark elves. They fell, one by one, to the drow masters of the blade.

One of the drow used a longsword and a short sword, another used a greatsword, and another, the most intimidating of them, used spiked chains.

The Cormyrean threw himself recklessly on the user of the greatsword. Foebiter slapped the sword away to the side, or attempted to. By the time he noticed that the sword was still there, he was already committed to the jab with his other scimitar.

The sword swung at him, but Miklos, following with the force of the jab, snapped a roundhouse to the drow's armored stomach and leaped, above the swing of the sword. Pulling Foebiter down with his fall, into a joint in the full plate at the neck. His other scimitar was there to parry the backhanded swing of the sword, deflecting it harmlessly to the side.

He slashed down hard, with Foebiter, at the wrist, right where gauntlet met armor. He grimaced with pain, but all that happened to the drow was his hands shook.

The other scimitar started in in a feint, but he sensed danger from the back. He spun…

Just in time to take a crossbow bolt in the face.

Miklos sat up, groggily. He was lying on a bed, seeing only a wooden ceiling. He had pain in his cheek, where he had been hit, but other than that, he felt fine.

The infirmary was crowded, and Miklos quickly told an attendant he felt fine and left.

A large chunk of the forest was burned out, thanks to the drow. There were two sets of fresh footprints leading out of the ash, so the ranger followed them. He would take his revenge for the destruction of his home and so many elven lives.

The trail led out into the woods. They were obviously trying to cover their tracks, but didn't really manage to well enough. He followed them.

He slept that night for only a few hours, but he had a startling dream.

He was in a forest. If it was Cormanthor, it was a part he didn't know, but it was nonetheless still much like his home.

A brilliant white horse with a single horn trotted down the path. A unicorn—the symbol of Mielikki.

The unicorn disappeared suddenly, and there was a beautiful woman standing there. The only woman he had ever seen to rival her beauty was the dryad he had met once…and, of course, Talindra.

"Miklos," she said in a voice like the rustling of a million leaves, "you are much more powerful than when Shandri first set you into the great forest on your own. You are so powerful, in fact, that you can begin to channel the power of nature, molding it into spells as you prepare. It takes an hour of prayer at dawn, noon, or dusk, and you need a full eight hours of sleep to do so. Your spells are limited, and you can only cast one a day. Prepare your spell wisely," she finished in her beautiful voice. Then she added, "And good luck."

Miklos found he had knowledge of all the spells he could choose from, and decided on one that would let him blend in with the forest. As soon as he finished his prayers, he set out on the trail again, but quickly this time, hoping fervently that the drow were injured and moving slowly.

Two days passed like this, and then Miklos finally caught up to the pair of drow. Before he got too close, he cast his spell. The power flowing through him seemed both strange and perfect, natural. He hardly noticed he was putting his hands through the motions and speaking the mystic words—he just felt the power.

He then snuck up on the drow, using his camouflage spell to his advantage. He was just feet from the closest one, the longsword-shortsword one…

Both drow spun on him. Miklos started to back off, just barely managing to parry the swords of the dual-wielder before the other one, the one using the greatsword, snuck up behind him.

The short sword slipped into his flesh twice, both times cruelly opening his skin to allow torments of the outside world into his body. He had been hit in both the leg and the side.

Miklos turned to face the dual-wielder, to better block his blows. He sensed the greatsword coming, and jumped up above where the sword should have gone, at about knee level—that was where he had seen it coming.

But the sword swiftly shifted upward, splitting the ranger from groin to shoulder.

**Chapter V**

Talindra swooped low through the forest, Akadi at her side. Everyone in town had said he would be this way, tracking a pair of drow…

She heard the sounds of a fight, and immediately shifted in that direction. She burst in on the scene, just as a drow cut Miklos in half.

The avariel stopped herself, and in a boiling rage, notched and loosed three arrows in succession at each of the drow. Her arrows were coated in a stunning poison that was extremely hard to resist, and with three of them, even an experienced drow warrior would be hard-pressed to stay conscious.

The archer swooped down on the unconscious forms, drawing her longsword and quickly beheading the two drow. She did some rather worse things to the drow with the greatsword before killing him, though.

She then rushed to Miklos's body. It was cut cruelly from his groin to one shoulder, split entirely in two with the force of the drow fighter.

She buried her face in his bloody chest, throwing herself on the still warm body. The side of her head was to her husband's chest, her arms around his bloody body as she sobbed uncontrollably.

A gentle beating, like the beating of a drum, made its way through to her awareness, somehow passing through the layers of guilt and grief.

Lifting her head to hear it better, she was despaired to find that it was gone. She threw her face back into her dead husband's chest and cried more.

It was back.

She lifted her head again, but this time saw where Miklos should have been cut in half, he was whole.

Could that sound have been his heart beating?

She lowered her ear near his mouth, and sure enough, he was breathing lightly.

Her lips pressed against his in a wonderful kiss.

He was alive!

Miklos found himself kissing Talindra, after a moment of blackness. Her lips were the most welcome sensation he had ever known.

But…he had died…

After a second, he was caught up in the kiss and decided not to question his good fortune.

Miklos and Talindra robbed the bodies of the marauding drow fighters—finding some high quality weapons and armor that would sell for a lot—, then returned to Tangled Trees.

They had no home, as it had been burned in the fire started by the drow. Aravilar, the shopkeeper who had been so kind to them, though, offered his own home to them. He didn't mind going into the Reverie in the shop, he said.

But when Miklos went to the shop one morning, he found Aravilar complaining to himself about the horrible floor he had to rest on.

Miklos and Talindra were walking through Cormanthor. The great forest had never ceased to amaze either of them—Talindra had been born in the Galena Mountains to the northeast. Marvelling at its beauty, they walked hand in hand through the forest…

At the same time, they saw something not quite so beautiful.

It was a long, forked tail tipped with a pair of scythelike blades. Spikes ran along the tail.

Talindra gasped, and the creature spun. Its entire body was covered in mottled brown scaly plates and spikes. Red eyes glowed at them from under a set of vicious horns and more spikes. Muscled wings flapped menacingly.

It was a fang dragon.

The dragon flapped its wings, sending itself lunging into Miklos. Sharp teeth ripped holes through even the finely worked steel of his elven chain. Long, bloody lines found themselves on his chest, and—after a second—his mind exploded in pain.

He managed, though, to draw his scimitars and slash the dragon, bravely putting Foebiter inside his foe's mouth for an instant.

The scimitar made it out just an instant before the wounded dragon snapped its jaws shut. Twin swords slashed, ignoring their usual feints and parries in favor of quick, small strokes.

Fang dragons had no breath weapon, but their wicked fangs could cripple almost any person forever. That knowledge was about the limit to what Miklos knew of the vicious predator.

Acting on that knowledge, Miklos slipped into an elaborate dance of dodging, parrying (when he thought his positioning could overcome the tremendous strength of the beast), and quick, light hits, slipping under its scales. His foe, realizing that, lashed out with its claws in a furious onslaught.

One claw caught the ranger on the leg, and he went down.

The dragon came at him, its mouth wide open for a bite. Miklos tried to wriggle free of the dragon's claw, but it held him down—he couldn't do anything, and still it dug into his thigh.

Miklos saw his death.

And then he saw the flash of an arrow burying itself in the dragon's mouth—then another, then another…

The dragon recoiled back, and Miklos managed to get out from under his grasp. He was up in an instant, scimitars flashing.

Arrows continued to find their way into the dragon's hide. And then, Akadi flashed out of the sky into the dragon, her talons flailing.

As the dragon flailed futilely at the nimble hawk, Miklos leapt up on the back of the spiked beast, straddling it until he reached its head, which whipped around in search of the ever-moving Talindra.

It finally found her, and started to leap up—with the aid of its wings—into the air, where Talindra swooped around. For this precious span of a few seconds, its head remained still.

Two scimitars found their way into the eyes of the fang dragon.

Talindra screamed something at him, but he didn't catch it in the heat of the moment.

His world became pain, and then blackness.

He awoke to find Talindra above him, trying to tend to his wounds.

Miklos tried to speak, but found himself unable to. All that came out was a kind of strange, guttural moan.

She silenced him with a kiss.

"Stupid, you forgot its tail," she said.

Talindra had driven the beast off with several well-placed arrows, but neglected pursuit in favor of tending to Miklos's wounds. When he returned to consciousness, they set out south, back to their home of Tangled Trees.

The druid Aedia Ilphustiic happily cured Miklos of his wounds, in exchange for the opportunity to go with them and kill the fang dragon. Not that that cost them anything—Aedia was an experienced druid, as experienced as Miklos or Talindra, and no weakling.

The three had just set out, but along the path, they encountered a stranger. He wore a deep green hooded cloak that covered his entire body. His stature was that of an elf or half-elf, possibly a small human. No weapons were visible, but under the fold of the cloak, that meant nothing.

"Greetings," Miklos said.

The man stopped, threw back his hood. He was an elf, but of the wood elf variety. Sylvan elves were, on average, stronger and tougher than moon elves and just as nimble, but less intelligent and charismatic.

"My name is Pujol Nevi," he said, "a ranger." He let his cloak loose, casually showing two scimitars hung there cockily, the style of a master.

"I am Miklos," he responded, "the same, and this is Talindra, the archer, and Aedia, the druid."

The women said hello to the sylvan elf. They were about to say something more, but Miklos dayerrupted.

"There is a fang dragon in these woods. We have come to slay it."

"How old?" he asked immediately.

Talindra responded, "I'm not sure, but I think it's probably about a hundred or so."

The spark in his eyes died immediately. "Oh," he said flatly, and continued down the road.

Miklos's scimitars cleared their sheaths in an instant at the site of the fang dragon. Talindra's bow, an arrow notched, was barely behind.

Aedia hung back, waiting for the more combat-oriented pair to take the lead. Talindra did so without hesitation, landing arrows into the fang dragon's tail—then, when it turned around, the dragon's eye.

Miklos leapt upon the dragon, scimitars flashing, short, precise jabs making their way through its scales to the soft skin.

Aedia called down a storm of fire. The bolts of flame didn't harm the plants, but they certainly did harm the dragon.

And Miklos. A fireball caught him on the back. The force of it sent him flying, his clothes aflame.

He rolled, putting out the flames as he did so. The dragon was still being pelted with bolts of nature's fury, and with his wife's arrows.

As soon as the firestorm ended, Miklos leapt in on the dragon. Foebiter found its way under a scale, so Miklos twisted it and pulled it out again. He tried that feat with his other scimitar. It made it under the scale…

But got stuck.

As he tried to pull it out, a swipe of the dragon's claws sent him flying. He would have hit a tree—but, catlike, he twisted his body in midair, landing in a sideways roll.

The ranger was on his feet in an instant. As his feet pounded their way back to the fight, his eyes stared, unbelieving.

Aedia was gone. In her place was another dragon, a large one. This dragon, though, was a friendly silver—one of the most powerful varieties of dragon, and the most good.

Claws, teeth, wings, and a tail ripped into the fang dragon with all the fury of a great wyrm. The fang fell instantly, hacked into countless pieces.

Miklos arrived at the clearing after what seemed an eternity. He couldn't keep his eyes of the majestic, great silver dragon, that had been Aedia.

He stood before the great wyrm, looking up at its face. Dragons could really be amazing creatures, and this silver was truly beautiful.

"Aedia?" he asked.

"That is one name for me," the drake said in a voice that resembled a soft wind, but was indescribably more. Miklos stared up into the orbs of mercury looking down on him. The face around it seemed to be sculpted of pure metal. Individual scales were impossible to see. "I have many.

"Yes, I have always been a silver dragon. I have been hiding from an ancient foe, the red dragon—" A name so impossibly grating and fiery, Miklos doubted human or elven voices could ever begin to pronounce such a sound. "He is known to humanoids as Malhavoc the Red. I am old enough now, though, that I can hope to defeat him, with some help. It is time for me to go, Miklos. Know, half-elf, that much potential lies within you. Do not forget it."

And with that, the great wyrm jumped up, and flew away into the clouds above.

Pujol Nevi stepped out of the shadows, into the flickering light of the campfire.

Miklos's blades were out instantly.

Pujol lifted his hands up. "I come a friend," he said.

"Oh, hello, Pujol." Miklos said, sheathing his scimitars. "Why aren't you—"

The sylvan elf pulled one scabbard off his belt, a scimitar in it.

"Take this," he said quietly. "It's named Moonshine. It was forged by a master elven smith, and enchanted by clerics of Seluné. It's good at both offense and defense, though only one at a time."

Miklos knew better than to reject the gift of a wood elf ranger. Such gifts were not earned easily, and refusal was foolish.

Very foolish.

"Thank you," he responded, slipping the scimitar and sheath onto his belt, putting the normal scimitar into his backpack.

"You did good," said the wood elf. "I'm here to make you better."

**Chapter VI**

Talindra awoke to the clash of steel. She leapt to her feet, noticed Miklos's absence, grabbed her bow and quiver, notched an arrow, and stepped through the tent door—all in about a second. In the flicker of the campfire's orange-red light, she saw an incredible sight.

Miklos and the wood elf they had encountered earlier were fighting; graceful curved blades sliding down each other, dodging nimbly, stabbing at now-vacated space.

The avariel noticed her husband had a new blade—it glowed with a gentle, pulsating green light. Quite a magical item, she guessed.

She aimed her arrow at the wood elf—what was his name, Pujol?—but didn't fire.

Their dueling stopped for a moment. "Don't worry," Miklos said. "Pujol is helping me."

Then scimitar set upon scimitar once more, and Talindra returned to sleep.

Miklos parried the oncoming thrust, but realized his mistake too late. He slapped away Pujol's blade, leaving both with one scimitar to put to effective use.

But Miklos's other scimitar had just been deflected away, and was too far away from Pujol's oncoming blade to be put to any use.

The scimitar's edge rested along his elven chain, a mere thrust away from his heart.

Now was the time to see if Pujol really was there to help, or if this was an elaborate plan to kill Miklos.

Now was the time of testing Pujol.

Now was the time of judgement.

He passed.

The blade withdrew, was sheathed. Miklos did the same.

"Not bad," Pujol complimented. "Not bad at all."

Swordsmanship continued for the next few days, then Pujol's lessons turned to agility and acrobatics.

"Everyone has a hidden force within them. Spellcasters draw on it in their own way, either using it to channel the power of the gods or the all-encompassing Weave. Psionicists draw on it in a different way, using it in their own, special manner, combining it with the raw force of their minds.

"You have some small talent for the former manner of casting spells. I can, if you wish, take that power and change the way you draw on it, at the cost that you will never be able to be as powerful a spellcaster as you could be. Before you make a decision, I want to show you what can be accomplished, using this power," Pujol said.

Barely bending his legs, he jumped backwards, doing several backflips as he did so. Pujol landed lightly on a thin branch, fifty feet off the ground, balancing perfectly.

Then he dropped down, tucking into a roll, came up and jumped even more impressively, soaring into the treetops.

"You can guess what kind of combat advantage this holds," said Pujol, his face a distant smile. "But, there's more."

A column of divine flame struck from the heavens, reaching down to smite the evildoer there…

The ant.

"Think that's overkill?" Miklos asked, smiling.

"Of course not," Pujol replied, dropping down at incredible speed…and ducking into a roll, staying perfectly fine.

"I'll do it," Miklos decided.

The initiation rites occurred within an hour or so. He supposed that the need for speed, which appeared so common in blademastery, had made its way into even the initiation.

Both blades were in his hands—Foebiter in the right, Moonshine the left. Pujol was chanting in an entirely strange tongue.

A shimmering mist appeared before him, its amorphous shape slowly solidifying…

The creature that appeared seemed to be a stunningly attractive human girl, but from the waist down, she was a sleek lion.

The monster had a curved knife in her hands, but the way she had her arms propped up her large, beautiful breasts.

She put the dagger down, reaching out to touch Miklos…

An instant before she did, he jumped back. Shandri had taught him to beware the touch of magical beasts, which was a category this creature certainly fit into.

Her beautiful face now sporting a frown, she grabbed her dagger and lunged at Miklos.

He slapped the dagger out of her hands easily. She concentrated for a second, and he felt a mental attack on him, but he easily repelled it.

She began concentrating on another spell, but he slashed a line along her from chest to shoulder, and she gasped in pain. Foebiter than cut another gash along her stomach.

The beast put her arm out, trying to touch him again. This time, instead of dodging, he chopped off her hand with a single clean sweep of Moonshine.

Moonshine's usual gentle green glow had become a harsh white fury, and Miklos realized why it was called Moonshine.

Foebiter then impaled the beast in the stomach. She was obviously in horrible pain now, but she managed to turn and start to run away.

He threw Foebiter with all the skill and speed he would slash with it.

He jogged over to the fallen body of the girl-lion. Her long black hair was splayed against her bloody back, Foebiter sticking up out of it.

"You did good," Pujol said. "Not many pre-initiates of your level can defeat a lamia so easily."

"Thanks," he replied. "What would her touch have done?"

"Made you lose your willpower. Good thing you were too smart for her."

Pujol then resumed chanting, once Foebiter had been recovered from the lamia's body.

Miklos felt magic searing through his body, enhancing him, adding to him. The magic continued for a moment or so, then stopped.

Then all was dark.

The fiery demons still rampaged in his vision. He was whipped once more with whips of pure fire; he was beaten by some dark creature of the night. Spiders crawling over his body, their little legs digging into his skin. Glowing red eyes everywhere, the only illumination that of the eyes and the whips of fire, with the occasional flame-shrouded demon or devil. Pain did far more than envelope him—he _was_ pain, and nothing else existed in his universe.

Except fear.

He saw the beauty of the deep Cormanthor once more. He stood up, shakily.

"Are you okay?" Pujol asked, concerned.

"Y-yeah. I'm fine," he responded uncertainly.

The gifts of the art of blademastery far outweighed its price, though. He moved fluidly with his blades, the scimitars becoming an extension to his body, as much a part of him as a leg or an arm.

His ability to jump, tumble, and balance seemed to be beyond human possibility. Already it was worth it—and Pujol promised there would be more soon.

He returned to camp that night, exhausted. Talindra had a small deer cooking over a low fire.

Miklos collapsed next to his wife, eating what she gave him of the masterfully prepared venison. Pujol offered to take second watch, the worst watch of all—since it disrupted your whole sleep cycle—and Talindra took first, so Miklos went to their tent and slept for six hours.

They returned to Tangled Trees the next day. Talindra and Miklos's home was well underway, though it would still be over a year before it was fully grown. In the meantime, they decided to stay in their tent. Aravilar had offered them his home, but they declined.

Miklos was lying in their tent, one of Talindra's wings wrapped around him, when he heard a strange noise. It was like the scuttling of a thousand little feet…

He woke Talindra, and they both put on armor and took out weapons quietly, in the dark. Miklos opened the tent flap just a tiny bit…

Spiders everywhere. Thousands of tiny little red eyes glowed in the darkness.

He closed the flap.

"Spiders," he whispered.

"Probably drow controlling them," she whispered back.

"What should we do?"

Talindra rummaged around for a torch and her flint and steel. She managed to light it without burning anything else. She held the torch in front of her face menacingly.

"Burn them."

Miklos opened the tent flap, ready to throw the torches into the ranks of spiders.

They were all gone.

He heard something above him. He hastily dropped the torch, drew both his scimitars, and took a step back.

A dark shape descended on him, and he quickly rolled out of the way.

The thing got up instantly, and he saw from the light of the fallen torch that it was a very large spider, more than ten feet in diameter, with a sleek, hairy black body. Its legs were viciously sharp, with sword-like blades on them.

It turned and charged him. He sidestepped, then stuck Moonshine in the way of the spider. It ran right into it, Moonshine's pulsating white glow searing into the semi-sensitive eyes of the spider just before the blade itself did.

Foebiter came down, and the spider was now half a spider.

Miklos ran, Talindra flying beside him, into the main town. Spiders were everywhere; in a few seconds, so was fire.

Miklos quickly dispatched another of the large spiders, then spotted a drow. He pointed him out to Talindra, then rushed in on him.

Silent half-elf feet barely touched the ground as he ran the hundred-fifty feet to where the drow stood. The dark elf turned, swinging a greatsword…

Miklos had expected such a move, and was already in the air, slashing down with Foebiter into the drow's head. It would not be so easy, however, and the drow jerked his head aside, avoid wasthe attack.

The blademaster landed in a roll, jumped up and twisted in the air to face the drow. The two warriors appraised each other, slowly testing the other with the occasional feint.

Then they leapt at each other at exactly the same time. As the drow swung his greatsword, Miklos leapt to the side, slipping Foebiter in to find a joint in the drow's full plate.

He couldn't.

Moonshine parried the next blow, and Foebiter tried once more to locate any kind of joint in the armor, any hole to get through in the whole upper torso of the drow fighter.

There wasn't one.

The next blow smashed through Moonshine, knocking the scimitar out of his hands. Miklos rolled to the side with the force of the blow, managing to avoid the brunt of the attack.

He grabbed Moonshine and came back up with a stab to the drow's legs. Once more, no type of weakness of any kind.

Moonshine then came in in a stab to the neck, but the drow's greatsword slapped the blade away. Foebiter then came in, the drow's blade enough out of the way to make a quick jab to the neck…

Drawing blood.

He went in with a flurry of blows to the warrior's neck, easily jumping over the drow's increasingly feeble attempts to slash him.

And finally, with a quick blow of Foebiter, he jabbed through, snapping bone and killing the drow instantly.

Looking around, Miklos saw several elven shapes. Most of those were drow, wreaking havoc on the doomed town. One was Talindra, flying around, dropping arrows into the spiders. Another was the alienist of Tangled Trees, a strange, reclusive character that was nonetheless skilled at summoning beings of the Far Realms. One was a flame savant, hurling fireballs among the ranks of spiders. The last was the mystic wanderer who had been coming through, a beautiful woman blessed with the favor of Seluné.

Easily dispatching another sword spider, Miklos went at another drow, this one using a sword and a shortsword. Miklos feinted in, bringing Moonshine in an attempt to strike this drow in the neck—

And then everything went black.

He was once more troubled by visions of demons and devils, though spiders now played a much more prominent role in his vision. This time, he managed to force the visions back, using his memories of his beloved Talindra.

He returned to consciousness—

Just in time to see the sword slice him in half.

**Chapter VII**

Talindra searched through the bodies littered about the forest, searching for her Miklos. He hadn't responded to her shouts, but she still harbored some hope that he was just unconscious. And if he wasn't…well, she wanted his body.

She shoved aside the dead shells of spiders and bodies of dark elves. With the other elves she was gentler, but still searched frantically.

Finally, she found him. He was slumped up against a tree, blood all around him. A dark elf lay across his stomach. She didn't notice, but his legs were at an impossible angle to his upper body. 

The avariel hurled the drow from the body of her husband, and then collapsed in shock.

Miklos was split in two along his stomach.

She buried her face in his cold chest, sobbing uncontrollably.

Miklos found himself on a flat, gray, bland plain. There were people around him, but not all too many. The mostly just stood around, waiting for some undefined event.

More people were popping onto the plain constantly, but Miklos took no notice.

The thing that caught his attention was a voice, the beautiful, seductive voice of some women.

"Hello," she said. Miklos turned around and saw a beautiful, naked woman. Her beauty was second only to Talindra, in his eyes. She looked human, but for the batlike wings and sinister, glowing red eyes.

"You know where you're going, don't you," she said. "Why not come with me, to Baator? I promise you, we'll have a lot of fun." She shifter her hips seductively.

Miklos almost agreed, but suddenly caught himself. Baator…the plane of devils. Devils!

Another person caught his sight. She looked like a human woman—beautiful, once again. This woman wore little, but more than the erinyes, which he now recognized the devil to be. She had long feathered wings, and a supple, lithe body.

Miklos recognized her immediately as a representative of Mielikki. "No," he said firmly as he strode towards the deva.

He had almost reached the deva when a call of light, so different from this flat, gray world, beckoned down to him. He was enveloped by it, bathed in the whirlpool of color and light. A sound broke into his ears—the beating of his heart.

He was alive!

Talindra had quickly sought out someone able to resurrect her husband. She couldn't find anyone able to magically return him normally, but had found an elven druid able to reincarnate him for free.

She knew that Miklos, though he would have the same memories, would be in an entirely new body. She was aware of that, and totally accepted it. She would pay any price to have her Miklos back.

The druid chanted for an hour or so, then finished. As her husband's body was consumed by the magic, several things happened. The only one of any consequence was that a mist appeared in a vaguely humanoid shape, then solidified into a body that looked vaguely elven. Talindra stared for a moment. The body looked like an elf maiden's, with lightly tanned skin and bright green hair. Her eyes were a striking emerald green. She wore a tight-fitting green dress.

Miklos's new body was a dryad.

"Talindra!" Miklos cried, rushing at her, arms wide. Talindra allowed herself to be embraced, then wrapped her arms around Miklos.

Miklos felt…strange. Talindra seemed amazed at something, and his body didn't feel quite right. His clothes seemed tight, and stopped at his upper chest. Talindra's breasts, usually up against his chest lightly, were squashed against something of his own, warm and soft. And his mouth on Talindra's didn't seem right.

When something brushed against his back, feeling both strange and natural at the same time, he stepped back and looked down.

He was a girl, a rather attractive one. Skin tanned, but not too much. A tight green dress over large breasts. Legs were exquisite, showing several inches above the knee.

Bright green hair.

"Talindra…what happened to me?"

"You got reincarnated," she responded shakily. "Your new body got made randomly by the spell. You're a dryad now."

"I'm sorry," said another voice—the druid. "I had no control over your new body, nature decided. If—"

"Don't worry, it's not your fault." Miklos looked down. "Thanks for reincarnating me. Is there any way to get me back to normal?"

"You'll need a really powerful wizard or sorcerer for that. I'm sorry, I'll pay for them to cast it—"

"Don't bother." Miklos walked up to an enormous oak. The oak was different from the rest of the forest. It had a special bond to her. "This is my oak. I can't go far from here. I guess I'll just stay here, live as a dryad. Don't worry about me, Talindra." She sighed, resigned to her fate. "This is how it has to be. Go, live your life, be happy. If you find a man, marry him. Don't worry about me—forget about me."

She stepped inside her oak.

****

Part Two—The Drow

**Chapter VIII**

Slowly, reluctantly, Talindra left the dryad to live her life out as a dryad. She was apparently resigned to her fate, but Talindra was determined to get her Miklos back.

She knew of no main settlements within Cormanthor other than Tangled Trees, so she had no way to find a powerful wizard within the great forest. So she set out, going to the northwest.

She flew for two days, covering about eighty miles. She stopped at a huge white hill of granite, looming above the countryside. There was a large building at the bottom, so she set down there and walked up. Apparently, it was an inn, so she entered.

The inn was loud and rowdy, though in a friendly way. The avariel drew some stares, but nonetheless she approached the bar, deftly sat down, and asked for an ale.

The ale was incredibly good, and she soon bought another. As the drinks wore on, she recalled asking the barkeeper if there were any powerful wizards around. He laughed, as did everyone nearby, and told her Elminister lived on the other side of the Old Skull.

Elminister…she had heard that name before, but she didn't remember when or where. She resolved to go see him the next day, though, and slept in the inn.

Miklos stayed in her tree for several days. She decided that if she was going to accept her new life as a dryad, she would need a new name. Since she had no idea what dryad names were like, she decided on an elven female name. She would have called herself Talindra, but decided not to—she wanted to forget her previous life.

Amra. Yes, Amra. Amra Tarnruth.

Amra noticed an elven man walking past. He was wearing simple traveler's clothes and a peasant's backpack, but had a look of power about him. He carried a quarterstaff in one hand, using it as a walking stick. He was a very attractive man.

In her past life, she would have been revolted by what she was now doing. But her mind was beginning to change, and she felt attracted towards this man, almost like in the past he (then) had felt for…what was her name again?

She shrugged and stepped out of her tree. Her tight green dress had been pulled low, revealing her chest down low, and she had cut the bottom shorter.

The elf smiled broadly. "Hello," he said. "I'm Vladislak, from Rashamen."

She flashed her best seductive smile. "I'm Amra." She took a few steps forward. When he stepped back, subconsciously, she pressed her body up against his tall, smooth form.

He reached around her back, picking her up. She wriggled out of her dress, and helped him take off his clothes.

And then they were together.

Amra woke up, Vladislak asleep on her. She felt his smooth, muscular body. She knew she had to be with him.

She slipped out from under his body, and moved over to lie down near her tree. Vladislak stood up, walked over to her. By the way he was walking, Amra knew he wanted more. So did she.

They embraced, then Amra dove into her tree, pulling the Rashemi with him. He marveled at the inside of her tree, so much bigger than it was on the outside, then tested its ability to make love within.

Both found it to be satisfactory.

Talindra flew quickly around the Old Skull to the abandoned windmill on the other side. There had been many men that would have been more than willing to sleep with her the night before, and she found several of them far beyond her standards. She hadn't, though. She was still loyal to Miklos.

The tower was an unpretentious one, easily recognizable for what it was—an old windmill. When she flew to its base, though, its magic was tangible.

The door was old and wooden. A sign, hastily scrawled, said in Common: "No questions answered, items given, or services performed! Begone with ye!" Despite this, Talindra knocked on the door.

There was no answer, so she knocked again. And again. Finally, the door opened to give view to a gray-haired, balding old man.

"Read the—" he started to say, then stopped. "Yes? How can I help ye?"

"My name is Talindra. My husband got killed by drow in Cormanthor, but a druid reincarnated him as a dryad. I want him back, if you would be so kind…I can pay."

"I would, but I have no time, I'm sorry. Tell ye what, there's a Rashemi sorcerer named Vladislak coming up here, through Cormanthor. He'll probably be at the Old Skull in a few days, so if ye want to wait for him, I'm sure he'll do it for ye. Tell him Elminister asked him to do it, then say 'Kalsidalv.'"

"Thank you," Talindra responded, somewhat disappointed.

"Ye're welcome," came the reply as the door shut.

Amra didn't let Vladislak go, though he clearly wanted to. He had somewhere important to go, apparently. But Amra wouldn't let him. The only time he wasn't gagged and bound was while they made love.

She was getting bored with him, but was afraid to let him go. Her attempts to charm him no longer worked, and she was afraid she would fall to a lightning bolt or fireball as soon as he was released.

So she left him there, and waited patiently for some other entertainment.

Talindra waited for Vladislak for several days, then gave up and returned to Elminister's tower. There was no one there.

She decided to return to Cormanthor, and look for Miklos. It took her two days to return, but she did, and set out immediately to find the dryad.

She set out with purpose at first, but soon realized she had no idea where it was and began to wander aimlessly. She set about in this manner for several days.

It had been just over a tenday since Miklos had been reincarnated, and she couldn't find him—her.

She continued to wander.

Amra watched with interest at the winged elf walking through the woods, obviously without any purpose. 

Something felt strange about the woman. Someone from her former life, perhaps…Odd. She had almost forgotten about her last life. This woman must have been important to her past self indeed.

Slowly, she stepped out of her oak. Her dress was less revealing this time, as she was speaking to a woman, but still showed her exquisite form.

"Hello," she said. "What are you doing?"

The elf snapped her gaze over to Amra. "Miklos," she breathed.

Miklos? Memories, incomplete but still there, came back in a flood. Amra pushed them back. She was a dryad, nothing else.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Miklos…don't you remember me?" she asked, clearly hurt. "Talindra…your wife…"

At that, Amra turned and stepped into her tree.

Talindra ran for some time, then finally gave into herself and screamed.

Her husband…her beloved Miklos…had forgotten her…

And what was more, when Miklos had found out who she was, she had been rejected.

Rage burst out in another primordial shriek. It was the drow. All the drows' fault. They had killed her Miklos in the first place…and Mielikki, formerly the most revered being she had ever known, was at fault as well. She was a goddess of nature, and surely, if she had cared at all, Miklos would never have become a dryad. Hell, Miklos would have never been killed in the first place.

She drew her bow. Mielikki was her goddess no more.

Dropping a passing bird with a single shot, she flew to the drow.

The drow were creatures of the Underdark. True, their roots had come from Illythiiri, a form of surface elf…but after being cursed by the good elven deities for following Lolth and retreating to the Underdark, the dark elves had long since lost their heritage of the forest. Avariel were no longer from the forest either, but Talindra had lived in Cormanthor all her life, and was much less removed from the forest elves.

All this allowed her to follow the drow silently and stealthily among the trees. She had been following this pair for a few hours.

The wizard and the fighter had stopped to camp in a small clearing for the night. Finally, she could no longer wait—the wizard had begun casting a spell.

The archer landed a shot inside the wizard's open mouth, making its way through the back of his neck. Within seconds, he was dead.

The fighter immediately drew his bastard sword and picked up his shield. His armor was finely crafted, but when not made of adamantite, drow armor couldn't compare with dwarven.

An arrow made its way to the dark elf, but harmlessly bounced off his shield. Talindra burst into silent flight, and dropped an arrow into his face as she passed by.

The drow sheathed his sword and put away his shield, drawing his bow instead. He found Talindra, swooping overhead…but the drow was unable to hit the avariel. In the time it took him to make one shot, Talindra made three.

When she decided it was time to end it, she simply swooped down, drawing her longsword and cutting the dark elf's throat in the same fluid motion. He was dead in seconds.

Amra soon had several men, both elven and human, tied up in her tree. She decided to release them all except Vladislak. The others were unable to really harm her.

Vladislak, though, was an interesting case. She only got occasional entertainment out of him, but when she could really get him going, he was a lot of fun.

Talindra continued sniping down any drow she saw. Mielikki was an utterly disgusting goddess to her. Cyric wasn't weak or false, like Mielikki. Mielikki had turned her husband into a dryad, so he was more under her control. Mielikki had led her astray of her true path in life. But now the Dark Sun ruled her life, and the Dark Sun commanded her to kill drow.

Which she did very well.

The drow came to know fear, and always went around with arrow deflection spells activated now. It was harder to do, but she still did it. She did what she needed to do, to get her revenge on the drow.

And her former goddess.

The months rolled by, and Amra noticed that her stomach was larger than normal. She realized she was pregnant, and became more of the reclusive, typical dryad than the sex-crazy fey she had been.

Giving birth was a strange experience, but not really that difficult for a fey like her. The baby was obviously hers and Vladislak's, as her son had many obviously Rashemi features—slender and small, like so many elves she had made love to…but his swarthy skin gave him away as Rashemi. His father named him Faurgar.

It was autumn, and the change in seasons was reflected in Amra's body. Her hair had changed from green to a deep red, and her skin darkened to match. Her dress, too, changed magically to the same shade of red as her hair.

She was cradling her son in her arms as he slept peacefully. She turned to see Vladislak standing there, hand outstretched. He chanted some mystic words.

He had gotten free.

Six globes of fire shot out from his hands. They impacted her directly on the chest. Her son was killed instantly, and she knew that she would be soon as well.

Talindra found a drow wizard who appeared to be of some power. She asked him, bow to his head, if he could return a reincarnated person to their original body.

He said yes.

She led him, slowly, through the forest. She knew where Miklos's tree was now, and found it quickly.

But where there should have been Miklos's oak tree, there was a burning stump. Two bodies lay on the ground not far away. One was a dryad, Miklos for sure. The other was a baby, clutched in Miklos's arms. Both were naked and entirely bald, clothes and hair surely burnt off their bodies, due to their bad burns.

Miklos's chest rose, then fell, ever so slowly.

"Bring that dryad back to her original body," Talindra growled.

The dark elf started waving his hands and muttering strange words. Talindra wondered, for a second, if he would be attacking her. If he was, should she stop him now? But what if he was actually doing as promised?

Talindra realized that since the tree was burnt down, the dryad would not have long to live. She hoped and prayed fervently to the Dark Sun that the drow was casting a spell to restore her Miklos.

The spell was completed. A mist rose around the dryad's body. Slowly, so, so slowly, the dryad began to change.

Breasts retreated into a flat chest. Hips reformed themselves, legs grew longer. Arms thickened, and the whole body gained muscle. Hair grew back, not the long hair of before but the shorter hair Miklos used to have. Facial features were rearranged, and her husband got his manhood back.

Talindra released her arrow then, instantly killing the dark elf. She then threw herself of her husband, removing her clothes as she went.

Miklos awoke. He was Miklos again, not Amra any more. He felt different, in a different body, but some things were still the same.

He ignored those things. After all, his wife was on top of him, and they were both naked.

**Chapter IX**

Miklos was in his old body again, that was true. He had all of his old skills back, including his blademastery. But some things…some things remained unchanged.

His connection to nature wasn't the same as it had been before his reincarnation. It was more dryad-nature than ranger-nature, in his opinion. Also, Talindra told him that now, rather than his blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin, he possessed flaming red hair, amber eyes, and darker skin.

He found that he could still speak to plants, though his ability to enter trees was gone. Charming, likewise, no longer worked, but he supposed that had more to do with changing sex than with returning to being half-elf.

Not long after they finished their outburst of lovemaking, Miklos noticed the dead drow. He narrowed his eyes.

"Was this the one who cast the spell?"

"Yes. I killed him just after," she responded coolly.

He frowned, then. "In cold blood?"

"Of course," she said matter-of-factly.

"Good Mielikki, what is wrong with you?" he demanded.

Her eyes flared. "Mielikki?" she spat. "You still worship her, even after what she did to you?"

"What happened was no one's fault! Mielikki did not cause it!"

"You really believe that?" she demanded.

"Of course! Talindra, what has gone wrong with you these past months?"

"Wrong?! By the Dark Sun, I have just realized the truth!"

"Dark Sun?! Cyric?!"

"Of course! Cyric has helped me to find the truth in the world—that all the other gods and goddesses a false! The Dark Sun is the only true power within the world!"

Miklos turned and left.

Miklos walked to the edge of the River Duathamper, stared into the running water.

"Dear Mielikki, please help me," he whispered.

The trees whispered to him, _She's coming_.

"How far?"

__

Just a minute or so away.

"How angry is she?"

__

Very. At you, and your goddess.

"Crap," he said, and slipped into the river.

The river felt cool and refreshing on his naked magically created body. It was as good as a real one, but since it was still new, felt somewhat weird.

A thought struck him. Since he seemed to be so much still a dryad, at least partially, perhaps he was bonded to a tree?

Or maybe not a single tree in particular, but perhaps, say, the whole forest? Or any tree?

He would probably recognize the boundary at which his symbiotic relationship ended, if one indeed existed.

Probably.

Talindra fumed, and was so mad she forgot to fly. But then she did remember, and progress was much quicker.

The Dark Sun _was_ the only true deity. The real Miklos would be able to see that. Obviously, Mielikki had managed to pervert her husband's mind enough in her favor during his time as a dryad. She would have to rid him of that perversion, somehow.

Somehow, she would do it.

Miklos saw his wife shoot by, overhead. He didn't know what was wrong with her, but something obviously was.

He was about to surface, but he noticed a drow female lurking in the trees. Weaponless, he could only sneak by underwater, hoping he could hold his breath long enough.

But the drow fell, an arrow striking her through the chest.

Miklos remained underwater, waiting for Talindra to pass by entirely. She had clearly gone quite insane sometime over those nine months.

When he saw that the avariel had been long gone, he surfaced. There was a path crossing the river, a small bridge there.

He decided to follow the path northwest, the opposite way from Talindra. He walked along for some time, going through the woods. Finally, he asked the trees:

"Are there any people nearby?"

__

Yes. There's a house a little farther down the road, a tree responded after a moment to ask its neighbors.

Miklos followed the trail up, finding the house to be a small cottage—not unlike the quarters he had lived in as a slave, except this one was much more friendly-looking.

Very conscious of his nakedness, Miklos knocked on the door. He was careful to keep the door between the person who answered the door and his more private areas.

A human girl of about thirteen opened the door. "Yes?" she asked, very much aware of his lack of a shirt and the way he hid his lower body behind the door.

"Is one of your parents at home?"

She scowled at him, but ran off to get a man a little older than Miklos.

"Oloré," he said to the man.

"Oloré," he responded. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, well, you see, I…don't have any clothes—"

The man slammed the door in his face.

Dejected, Miklos walked away, back on the path. If he remembered right, this was the Halfaxe Trail. To the northwest, it ran into the main thoroughfare of the Moonsea Ride. From there, he could go to most of the Dalelands, from the Cormyrean city of Tilverton to the Moonsea metropolis of Hillsfar. Many roads branched off of the Moonsea Ride, so he could get where he was going easily—wherever that was.

He continued walking for some time, then set off the side of the road to sleep. He whispered to the trees to warn him if Talindra came, then laid down on a mossbed.

Why had Talindra abandoned Mielikki? And worse, why had she chosen _Cyric_? Of all the gods, why Cyric!

Pondering on his wife's insanity, he fell asleep.

The elf slipped noiselessly through the trees, but stopped suddenly.

A naked man, lying on the moss.

Could he be…?

He looked like the man she remembered, but for his red hair and darker skin. But he had been reincarnated as a dryad, and it was fall. Maybe he had kept some dryad traits when he reverted…

The druid walked up beside the man, then crouched, her knees inches from his head.

She almost touched his shoulder, to wake him up, but he sat up with a start.

"Excuse me," she said sheepishly as he turned away, "are you Miklos, by any chance?"

He turned his head around, but his body still faced the same way. "Yes, I am. How do—"

"I'm the druid who reincarnated you," she said. "I'm sorry about the dryad thing, by the way, but you seem to have been restored."

His face changed to an expression she didn't quite know how to interpret. "Yes, by a drow. And then my wife killed him."

"I'm sure—"

"You're wrong. She killed him in cold blood, and knew exactly what she was doing. She's gone quite insane," he said simply. "She worships Cyric now."

"Yes. I am still one of Mielikki's faithful."

"I have your equipment," she said. "You and your wife both left before I could give it to one of you. Oh. Also, I never told you my name. I'm Lyssiah Stormwhisper." Lyssiah took the scimitars and chain out from her backpack, and handed them to him. "Your clothes were totally destroyed, or I would have taken them. I bought you this, to make it up to you." She presented a green pair of pants, shirt, and cloak.

"Please, you gave me my life. That's more than you needed to."

"Take it. It's a gift."

Miklos put on the clothes and his armor, and sheathed his weapons.

"Thanks," he said.

"Here, take this as well." She produced a set of finely made leather gloves. "These are actually fairly strong magic items. They help you with dual-wielding."

"I—"

"I want to make it up to you. Please take them."

Miklos put on the gloves. They did indeed seem to make him stronger with his left hand—though he was ambidextrous, his right hand was the stronger one.

"Thank you, for everything." Miklos said gratefully. Glancing up, he saw it was almost dawn. "I really have no idea about what to do about Talindra. I still love her, but with her being as Cyricist as she is…"

Lyssiah frowned. "Find a priest of Mielikki, explain to him what's going on. See what he says."

"Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks for all the help."

"You're welcome." And with that, Lyssiah turned into a hawk and flew away.

Miklos set out farther along the Halfaxe Trail. Along the way he ran into a pair of owlbears, then dispatched them easily. The green dragon was harder, though.

He was just walking along the trail when a blast of acidic gas shot out from the side of the road. It caught him off guard, eating at his skin.

He turned and saw the dragon. It wasn't too big, only about ten feet long. It couldn't have been more than a hundred.

He jumped up in the air, flipping and drawing both his blades, cutting the dragon in the same smooth motion. He stayed onto the dragon's swiftly moving back, but then leaped into a tree, remembering its tail.

As the dragon reared up to bite him, he stabbed it twice, once in each eye. He then followed through with a quick kick, snapping the dragon's head back. Twin blades came through in a flurry of quick slashes to the dragon's face. 

The green wyrm opened its mouth, letting loose a blast of acidic gas—but the blademaster's reaction were just too quick, and he rolled out of the way altogether.

Miklos slipped Foebiter into the dragon's still-open mouth, wriggling it into the wyrm's skin. The wyrm slashed down with all its might, but the blow slid off Moonshine as the blademaster slid to the side. He tugged his scimitar out from the dragon's mouth, but pulled too hard and fell back. He managed to turn it into a roll, though, and came up in a crouch instantly.

Then the dragon let loose another cone of acid.

Miklos was caught entirely unawares. The acidic gas ate at his skin, bringing agony into an entirely new meaning for the blademaster—not an easy feat, considering his background.

He didn't understand quite what happened, but he saw an arrow fly into the dragon's eye. Then another for the other eye. Overwhelmed with pain, he could then see nothing more.

**Chapter X**

He awoke to find a beautiful elven girl's face above him. She was probably a year or two younger than he was...except she would be about ninety older…Anyway, she was physically a little younger than him.

"So, you're up," she said in Common.

"Yes," he replied in Elven, thinking she might know it better.

The girl raised an eyebrow. "You were out for a while. I fixed up most of your wounds, but I couldn't get them all."

Miklos shifted uncomfortably, finding his whole body crying out in pain.

"You saved me?" he asked.

"Yeah," she responded, shrugging.

"Thanks," he groaned. "What's your name?"

"Qillathe Amastacia," she responded.

She walked around him, allowing him a more full view of her body. The girl wore a set of leather that still managed to show some of the more important parts. She was incredibly beautiful, far beyond anyone he had ever seen, including—he realized—Talindra.

He wanted her.

With his wife insane and trying to kill him, he really owed her no loyalty. And it wasn't like he hadn't violated that loyalty before, as a dryad…

Whoa. First things first. He had to see if she liked him at all first, before planning to sleep with her.

But he could daydream, couldn't he?

"Did you hear me?" she asked suddenly. Miklos snapped his gaze up to her face.

"What? Sorry, no, probably some lingering acid screwing up my ears."

"I asked if you wanted some food."

"Oh. Yeah, sure."

Miklos noticed that there was a small fire nearby, in the middle of the small clearing they were in. Qillathe took a rabbit out from over the fire, giving him a piece.

He ate it in small bites. The acidic gas had made its way down into his throat, so eating was painful.

But he did it anyway.

When Miklos was fully recovered, he told Qillathe his entire story. In return, she told him hers.

Qillathe had been a normal elven child, growing up in a small hamlet within the forest. When she was just eighty (the equivalent of eleven, to a human), her town was invaded by gnolls.

These gnolls were different, far different, from the norm. Oh, they acted the same, killing, taking slaves, and some other things; but they were much stronger and smarter. They wiped out the town's defenders.

All the children and non-combatant women were put together. The boys and young girls were killed, cruelly. Qillathe had been forced to watch her younger brother die slowly as he bled from a large, cruel cut on his chest.

Then the gnolls were set loose on the women and older girls.

Several months later, a wizard aborted the life of Qillathe's bastard child.

As she finished her story, the girl rubbed her stomach. Miklos's eyes obviously burned with hunger. She _was_ beautiful.

That bitch! Taking away her Miklos!

Talindra notched an arrow to her bow, aiming carefully. This one had to hit just right for the perfect poetic justice she so richly deserved.

The girl bent over to fix some bandage or other. She had her back to Talindra.

Thanking Cyric for his favor with a smile, she let her arrow fly.

Miklos was shocked when Qillathe cried out in pain and slumped on top of him. Seeing the arrow sticking into her shapely butt, Miklos shifted under her.

He looked into the woods for the archer. He had a sick feeling of who it might be.

__

She may be insane, but I'm pretty sure she still loves me, Miklos reasoned. _I don't think she'll shoot me._

Miklos had been wrong before, many times. He would be wrong once more this day.

He stood up, getting his way out from under Qillathe with ease.

"Talindra?" he asked.

Talindra's voice, laden with fury, accused, "You want to betray me! You want to lay with this girl!"

Miklos's eyes flashed brilliant amber. "So what? With you as insane as you are, I see no more bond tying us!"

An arrow shot from the trees.

Far above Toril, in the outer planes of the gods, the deities fought over mortal.

Cyric was supporting Talindra. He wanted Miklos to be struck down, as he could tell Miklos would eventually play a pivotal role in the affairs of the world—against Cyric.

Mielikki, supporting her follower, tried to stop him. Though Cyric was more powerful than she was, Mielikki had the support of many others.

Silvanus, god of wild nature, whom she willingly served, was supporting her in this. Chauntea, the goddess of plants and growth, also helped her, as well as Corellon Larethian (the elven major god), and Rillifane Rallithil, the elven god of nature. Several other minor deities helped as well.

Cyric boasted no allies at all.

The deities allied with Mielikki easily overcame Cyric.

"That's what you get for being evil," Mielikki smirked.

Back on Faerûn, the arrow took a violent course change an instant before striking the blademaster. It swerved downward, _thudd_ing harmlessly into the grass.

Miklos's blades stayed in their sheathes, despite the fact he doubted it would happen again.

"Talindra," he said softly. "No. You're not Talindra. You may be in her body, yes, but you aren't her. She would never do this to me. Hells, she would have never even gone to Cyric in the first place."

"Be silent, fool!" she shouted angrily. Another arrow streaked out.

This time, there was no deitific interference, but the arrow went flying away anyway.

In two directions.

Talindra blinked, trying to see what had happened. She couldn't figure it out.

Miklos had actually drawn both his scimitars, crossed them, and returned them to their sheathes so fast they couldn't be seen. He had timed it so perfectly that he struck the arrow with both blades, sending it spinning harmlessly away in two pieces.

But Talindra didn't need to know that.

"You see? Mielikki offers more protection than you would know." His tone of voice changed from smug to a request. "Please come back."

Another arrow shout out, this time lower. Miklos shot his legs out of the way, and luckily managed to avoid the arrow, which slammed, quivering, into the dirt.

"You can't touch me, Talindra," he said softly. "Please don't make me do this to you."

Another arrow shot, this time at his head.

Miklos couldn't use his blades, this time, not without being seen. Snapping his head around would be pretty bad for it as well, almost as bad as getting hurt.

Time seemed to slow down, nearly stop. The arrow moved at such a slow speed that Miklos could catch it where he stood.

Smiling, he knew what to do.

He wasn't sure how the time stop spell had come over him, but he was fairly sure that was what it was. If it was, he could move around at full speed for about twenty seconds, then time would be returned to normal.

He started to walk around to Talindra's back, to get her quiver.

But he moved slowly, almost as slow as the rest of the world.

He was a fool to think that such powerful magic could have come over him so readily. This was some lesser spell, though it did allow him time to think.

He aborted his motion forward, then reached out and grabbed the arrow.

Time snapped back to normal speed suddenly. He took a second to reorient himself.

Sighing, he took the dagger he always kept in his boot and flung it, hilt first, at his former wife.

She took the hit in the forehead and went down hard.

Qillathe got the arrow out of her with a simple healing prayer to Mielikki.

"That was…?" she asked.

He nodded.

"I may be able to restore her, but I doubt it. Once the Dark Sun has taken a soul, a druid can only do so much."

The druid set about casting her spell. Miklos woke her up just before the spell's completion. She was restrained with another spell of Qillathe's.

Talindra struggled, trying to get out of the plants ensnaring her. She couldn't.

Qillathe shook her head after a second. "She refused," the druid informed him.

"What should we do with her?" Miklos asked.

"I'm not sure…" the elf responded. She was now leaning against his slender frame, burying her head into his shoulder.

Miklos stroked her hair absentmindedly. "Could a priest…?"

"I doubt it."

"Talindra," he said forcibly, stepping forward, away from Qillathe.

She stared at him, fury in her eyes.

"We will be married again, if you come back," he said pleadingly. "We could have children, make a family…"

The avariel merely struggled in her plant bonds.

"This is your last chance to come back," he said quietly. "If you don't…"

She spat, "The Dark Sun is all!"

Miklos turned away sadly.**Chapter XI**

The blademaster walked away slowly, through the thick trees of the great forest of Cormanthor, Qillathe at his side.

"What will happen to her?" Miklos asked softly.

"She's been released from the spell by now. No telling what she's done or will do since."

They continued on in silence for a little longer.

Something seemed wrong. He took his arm off the girl's shoulders, and slipped out of hers, drawing his blades.

"Is there anyone near?" he whispered to the trees.

__

Yes. Three of them, black-skins. They're—

At that instant, Miklos spun, bringing both blades up to chop the crossbow bolt flying at him in two, as he had done Talindra's arrows.

Three menacing-looking drow stepped out of the trees—two males and a female. The males rew ither side drew their weapons—one a sword and shield, the other a wicked greatsword. The female began in the intonations of a spell.

Miklos leapt up, flipped in the air, and came down with his blades going through the female's shoulders.

Or at least, that's where they _should_ have gone. Some invisible shield bounced them back, though it glowed green where it struck. The priest, at least, lost her concentration.

Miklos, not losing his momentum, jumped up again and landed on the charging warrior's shoulders. The drow was knocked down by the sudden extra weight, rolling as he hit the ground. A scimitar slipped in through the armor and the dark elf's ribs.

He tried a kick to the priest's stomach. It felt like he had kicked a brick wall.

He spun around and kicked the other warrior, catching the drow about to strike him off guard. He followed through with a scimitar thrust to the unprotected neck.

The blademaster turned to the cleric again, in the process of casting another spell. She didn't lose her concentration under the rapid flurry of scimitar thrusts.

But she did when the tree fell on her.

In fact, she lost a lot more than her concentration.

She lost her life.

Qillathe had shapeshifted, as a druid can, into a grizzly bear. While the drow and the blademaster were distracted with each other, she found just the right tree, and pushed it over with one mighty shove.

Checking over the drows' bodies, he found nothing useful to him. There were a few useful things on Qillathe's body, though, and he removed them rather quickly. She found some of his possessions useful as well.

The fox slipped through the underbrush silently. He was actually the half-elf druid Jharville Dragonland, and was rather surprised to see the two people there on the forest floor; three drow bodies around them, their clothes scattered about.

He hoped desperately that these were the right pair. Alaundo's prophecy—and Mielikki's own directions—commanded him to seek out the two who's skill in battle was rivaled only by their love. Neither had a scratch, and there _were_ the three dead drow—one of them female, he saw.

He laid down and waited patiently.

Miklos was lying down, Qillathe's small frame (even smaller than his) sprawled next to and on him.

He could see, just over the wonderful curves of her body, a fox walking out of a bush. He watched idly as it walked over, and tried to see things from its point of view.

Oddly, it failed. He frowned. It had always worked before.

He sat up.

The man sat up as he walked closer. Could be either good or bad…it could be that he tried to emphasize with him and it failed, so he was naturally suspicious…or it could be the man was a sadist or even afraid of animals.

He reached for his swords as Jharville loped closer. Still, no indication…

"Who are you, shapechanger," he asked in a low, focused voice. Good—the best possible thing for him to ask, except if he had recognized him as a druid.

The girl sat up and put her arms around the man's shoulders. "Come on, Miklos. It's just a fox." She reached around to kiss him, but he stopped her. Jharville frowned for a second. He didn't even know his real name…?

"No, it's not, Qillathe. This is some shapeshifted thing. Maybe a druid, like you."

Jharville smiled inwardly. A ranger and a druid, apparently…what better match for Mielikki's champions?

He reverted to half-elf form. Neither of them seemed startled as his body shifted. Apparently, they had been exposed to such things already.

"You are right, ranger. I _am_ a druid…but you are wrong about one basic thing."

"What?" the ranger demanded.

"Your name," he said simply.

"What do you mean?" he exploded. "My name is Miklos!"

"Is it? Or is that what you call yourself, out of lack of knowing your true name?"

"I don't have one," he said darkly. "I was a slave, and supposedly didn't deserve a name. So I call myself after my savior—so what?"

"You really think you were born a slave?"

"Well…no, but…"

"You are the son of the Cormyrean noble Arszin XI, and the noble moon elf sorceress Thalia Moonwhisper. The Mage Royal of Cormyr is your aunt!"

The blademaster was silent for a moment. "So…so what's my real name?"

"You are Saeval Moonwhisper."

"Saeval…not hard to tell my mother was an elf. Are they still alive?"

"Sadly, no. They died during the Time of Troubles, which was when you were captured by the malaugrym."

"Malaugrym!"

"Yes. They tried to glean a secret from you…the secret of—well, you should find out yourself." Interrupting Saeval's response, he continued, "Both of you, now. Mielikki thinks that you can do great good, especially together. She asks you to become her Chosen. 

"The responsibility is not small. You may very well live thousands of years. You will see everything and everyone you love destroyed…you will see this forest die. Those countless years will be spent in service to Mielikki and nature itself. She may ask you to do some things that seem wrong, that are hard to do. You will need to do them.

"You'll be granted some powers that seem wonderful at first. Believe me, they will be a burden later.

"Mielikki will still think highly of you if you decline. You will not be lowered in her—or anyone else's—eyes. After all, you two will still do so much in the few hundred years you have remaining. So, do you want to?"

Miklos—Saeval—answered quickly. "Yes," he said, squeezing Qillathe's shoulders. She answered affirmatively as well, a second later.

"One more question, before we become Chosen—since we're living forever, will we stay young forever? Or are we just going to get older, until we're physically like a hundred, then say like that for the rest of our lives?" Mik—Saeval asked.

"You'll stay as old as you are now for the rest of your life, unless you want to become older. Powerful druids can shift their appearance at will, though, and it's not that hard to find a magic item to replicate that feat," Jharville answered.

"You ready?" he asked after a second. When Qillathe reached for her clothes, he said, "Don't put your clothes on yet. They'd get destroyed in the process of becoming Chosen."

Saeval nodded. "Yeah. I'm ready."

"Well then, let's do it," the half-elf druid said, discarding his clothes.

And with that, they floated up into the air.

The three elven forms—well, two half-elf and one elf, but close enough—floated together, about a hundred feet above the treetops. A golden sphere formed around the three.

Vines and other plants snaked up from within the forest slowly, as birds from all around flocked to the sphere. The plants closed around the three, trapping the birds between the magic sphere and the barrier of plants.

Jharville brought his hands in the motions of a spell. A woman appeared beside him. She was human and a little better than average looking, and she too was naked.

Both Jharville and the woman's bodies glowed with a brilliant green light. They floated to the two soon-to-be Chosen.

Saeval was only mildly annoyed that Jharville was with Qillathe.

An elf below them happened to glance up through the trees. He saw a strange layer of vines snaking up from the forest, but from his angle, he could see through them. Occasionally a bird flew over the hole, but only momentarily.

Inside he could see two pairs of people, a man and a woman in each pair. He could see through the golden sphere that they were…

His mouth dropped open in amazement.

To waste perfectly good magic on _that_!

Saeval felt different after lying with the woman. He noticed that they were descending, their layer of vines retreating.

He felt, somehow, raw nature flowing unfiltered through his veins. He had felt like this before, but to a much lesser extent, as a dryad, and even less after.

Looking at Qillathe, he knew she felt the same way. She had never been a dryad, but a druid was probably very similar.

When his feet touched the soil, the feelings compounded far beyond anything he had ever imagined.

**Chapter XII**

Winter was beginning. He noticed his darkish skin had lightened to a pale white, and had been told his hair had as well. Also, Qillathe told him his eyes were now a pale violet.

Snow was falling lightly through the branches of the trees. Very little hit the ground—but then again, Saeval wasn't on the ground.

One of the few abilities he could use whenever he wished as a Chosen of Mielikki was change his shape into any animal he wished. Right then, he and Qillathe were monkeys, bounding along the canopy.

He took a particularly far jump—he could still use blademastery in animal form—to catch up to Qillathe. He turned her around, ready to experiment with some monkey lovemaking…

A fireball burst into existence between the lovers. Their little monkey bodies were thrown back.

Saeval was shifting in the air, back to his normal body. He hit a particularly tall tree's trunk and pushed off with his feet, propelling himself down into the trees with scimitars leading.

Dual pointed blades hit the drow standing there, but they passed right through. So did Saeval.

He whirled, looking for the wizard.

Qillathe had shifted into an eagle, rightened herself, and flashed through the air just above them, where the drow wizard really was.

Saeval, seeing them, jumped up, Foebiter in the lead. He slipped it where it should have gone through his ribs, but it bounced off.

Expecting this, Saeval was already spinning with a back hook kick. He slipped his foot down in just the position to send the wizard spinning downward, then dropped to the branches below, balancing perfectly.

Qillathe gained some altitude on the drow, then shifted into a grizzly bear.

The bear came crashing down, slamming into the drow…

And bouncing off.

The drow landed lightly, then started casting another spell. Fearing its possible effects, Saeval leaped up and shoved him off the branch.

But he couldn't shove him. Saeval's shoulder rebounded off the dark elf, and he went flying backwards.

Saeval had no idea what happened next. One moment, he was falling—the next, he was still falling, but there was a horrible explosion of fire right on his chest. He was sent whirling backwards, very, very fast.

The forest was on fire. To add to the problem, there was a brown mist in the area. He could feel that it was sucking the moisture from the plants around him, not to mention him.

Even worse, the drow was nowhere to be seen. And neither was Qillathe.

Saeval did a backflip, leaving the mist. But that wasn't helping the plants, or Qillathe.

He closed his eyes, getting even more in tune with nature around him than normal. Animals were terrified, running away as fast as they could. Plants were in pain and vaguely afraid.

He absorbed their emotions into himself, replacing them with a desire—to kill the dark elf.

Trees uprooted themselves, lumbering around towards a point to the southwest of Saeval. Wolves and foxes sprinted to it; rabbits, mice, and other gentle creatures flocked to that point. Birds came down out of the trees.

It was a wonderful feeling.

Countless plants and animals were converging on the drow. He had already used his three most powerful spells. He had three more of reasonable power, but he hadn't prepared any battle spells…he had chain lightning and fireballs. And he had used all his teleportation and planar magics…

Just as he started the incantation for a chain lightning, the trees set on him.

Saeval stopped the trees before they killed the drow—in other words, right after they had started. He demanded a scimitar to the mage's throat, to know where Qillathe was.

"She's…deep underground…below the Underdark…imprisoned her there," he gasped.

Saeval tensed, and the blade pressed a little tighter against the drow's throat. "How do I get her out?"

"Have to cast…the counterspell…I don't know it."

"Who would?"

"Most powerful…good mages."

"So what use are you to me?" he asked, his voice hard.

"I can…help you in—"

"I don't think you can."

Saeval pressed forward on his blade.

The eagle soared across the skies, as the snowstorm had just abated. To the west he flew, to Shadowdale and the Old Mage.

Reverting to half-elf form along the way to question people, the ranger found Elminister's tower easily enough. It didn't look all that impressive, just an old abandoned windmill.

He glided down to the door. There was a sign on the old wooden door: "No questions answered, items given, or services performed! Begone with ye!"

Ignoring the sign, he knocked. No one came until about the fifth time.

An old man slammed open the door, saying angrily "Can ye read or—a Chosen? Not of Mystra, yes…Mielikki?"

Saeval nodded.

"Well, by all means, come on in," the mage said, as if his recent outburst had never happened. "I'm Elminister Aumar, I'm sure ye know. And ye…?"

"Saeval Moonwhisper."

"Ah, yes. I remember Alaundo saying something about ye."

"Alaundo?" Saeval asked.

"The great prophet, boy!" Elminister said incredulously. "Oh, yes. I remember now. Well…Ye see, Alaun—"

Elminister stopped talking suddenly, and cocked his head. He was probably listening to some magical message or other.

He pressed his lips tightly; a pained look came over his face. "Sorry, Saeval. I have to go; I've got some business to attend to in the High Forest. Anything I can do for you real quickly?"

"I don't know. A drow wizard trapped this elf girl underground. He said the only way to ever free her was the counterspell, but he didn't know it…"

"Ah, yes. Could you show me where it is?"

"Sure. But I flew here…"

"That's fine. I can change shape too, ye know." He smiled.

A few minutes later, a pair of eagles arrived in Cormanthor.

The spell was cast rather quickly, reuniting the lovers. As they embraced, Elminister teleported away.

Talindra smiled. Just see that Mielikki-lover chop _these_ arrows in half!

Her arrows had hollow heads. Within them was a small vial of the potent _Oil of Impact_, a highly explosive alchemical substance. Some of her fellow Cyricists had stolen the idea from a priest of Deneir to the north. Though he used a crossbow, it was easy enough to convert to using a bow.

Miklos was hugging—kissing, too—that elf girl. Talindra didn't care anymore about winning back her former husband's love—that wasn't important. The only thing that was important was getting her revenge.

She laid her aim on the girl's chest. Though it was rather shapely then, it wouldn't be for long. Talindra smiled demonically.

The arrow shot out with a _whoosh_.

Saeval felt the wonderful taste of Qillathe on his lips, breathed her in. There had never been a more perfect moment in his life, except for one glorious night with the elf.

Something suddenly seemed wrong. He had no idea what, but there was most certainly something the matter.

He pulled back. Qillathe looked at him, confused, but he jumped forward with her in his arms.

Suddenly—

****

Boom

He rolled forward, Qillathe still in his arms. Both rose then, and Saeval leaped towards where he instinctively felt the blast had come from, both scimitars already out.

In the bushes, there was Talindra.

She was tattooed horribly—dark purple suns and white skulls covered her body, with large ones on the back of her wings and her forehead.

"Talindra," he said quietly. "What have you done to yourself?"

She responded with an arrow to the face.

Time slowed down, as it had once before. Saeval reached up, slowly, so slowly, and grabbed the arrow by the head.

Time snapped back to normal.

And then the world went crazy.

Saeval was lying on the ground, several feet away. He stared at the smoking stump that was his left arm, and slowly, so slowly, he started to feel pain.

Then it was unbearable.

Talindra grabbed an amulet around her neck, of the Dark Sun's symbol. She pressed on the center of the skull.

Then she fitted another arrow to her bow and took aim.

Qillathe had shifted immediately to wolf form. She ran and leaped, shifting in mid-jump to a massive bear.

Talindra was crushed.

Qillathe returned to her natural form and rushed over to her lover. Saeval was lying on the ground in pain, clutching his stump of an arm. She started to cast a healing spell.

"No!" Saeval shouted. At her confused look, he went on to say, quieter, "If there's any healing magic cast on me, any at all, I'll be hurt more."

Qillathe knelt next to him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

The wound had burned itself closed, so she didn't have to worry about him losing blood. But he was still in obvious pain, so she ripped off a piece of her cloak and spread some various herbs on it, herbs that would help his burn heal.

Hopefully.

****

Epilogue

**Chapter XIII**

Saeval, rather than being a one-armed cripple (dangerous, with the drow all around), not to mention being in constant pain, shapeshifted into a tiger. He had always loved the sleek, powerful body of the great cat.

As he shifted, he suddenly felt dizzy and passed out.

He was suddenly floating high above the ground, above the clouds. He looked down on Toril, far below him, and saw the Sea of Fallen Stars and the Dragon Reach between the clouds.

A beautiful woman—a dryad, he realized—appeared next to him. He was awed by the aura of power surrounding her.

"Mielikki," he whispered.

"Yes," she said, her voice the whisper of leaves rustling in the wind.

"What is happening to me?" he asked her, clutching his stump of an arm.

"Cyric's power has cursed you. Any magic that would heal you would instead kill you instantly. Also, shapeshifting has its price. You can shift once, and only once—which you have just done, into a tiger. If you shift again, you will die."

"What?" he asked, shocked.

"I'm sorry, but I'm powerless to help you. Since Talindra was a Chosen of Cyric—"

"She is?"

"Yes. Since you are both Chosen, it relies now on the power of your respective gods—and I'm sorry, but Cyric won there. You will remain a tiger."

Saeval was returned to Faerûn's surface, back in Cormanthor. He was a tiger.

He cocked his head at Qillathe, and sent telepathically, _I'll be a tiger forever._

At that, Qillathe promptly shifted into her own tiger form.


	3. The Monk

Book Two

****

the monk

Prologue

Aedia Ilphukiir screamed.

The red wyrm casually popped a human girl into its mouth, then turned its huge, glaring amber eyes on her. She was the only one left.

A claw reached out gradually, slowly. Aedia felt something warm run down her leg.

Screaming, she was carried to the wyrm's mouth.

Slowly, ponderously, it opened it.

Then, suddenly, it lowered her some. Still, a massive clawed, scaly foot was holding the hundred-year old elf. She continued screaming.

A man, dressed in loose, flowing clothes, sandals on his feet and a cloth belt tied casually around his waist, stood in the cavern entrance.

He spoke in Draconic, of which Aedia knew only a few words. She heard "…dragon…elf girl…now…consequences."

The dragon laughed, the cold, mirthless sound echoing throughout the cave. It spoke a string of draconic words—the only one she understood was "man."

The man charged the dragon, jumping into a flying sidekick. His sandaled foot smashed into the dragon with enough force for it to gasp.

Aedia dropped the twenty feet or so to the cold stone, and started sobbing uncontrollably. She heard something snap when she hit the ground.

The man went into a flurry of lightning-fast punches and kicks to the dragon, jumping around the wyrm's body. It tried to fight back, but he was always nimbly out of the way.

The wyrm roared out a fireball to burn the man. Aedia, just barely within range of the flaming heat, screamed and rolled on the ground as her clothes burned, blinded by the pain.

But the man rolled out of the way.

He then did another flying kick, this time to the dragon's extended neck.

The wyrm, just recovering from its firebreathing roar, fell over with a huge crash.

The man had just defeated a red wyrm.

****

Part One

**Chapter I**

The monk strode over to Aedia and pulled a bottle out of the folds of his clothes. He gently opened the girl's mouth and poured the contents down it. Her bones mended and wounds closed with the gentle electricity of healing magic.

Malark Dundragon crouched down next to the girl. As she woke up, she reached her arms out to cover her breasts and her crotch, but the monk eased her hands back. "No need for that. I've seen all of you already."

Aedia sat up, slowly and groggily. She rubbed her eyes as she stared at her savior.

He was a handsome enough man, with a hint of exotic, eastern looks. He wore a loose shirt and loose breeches, bound together by sashes, as well as a headband, a belt, and sandals. All of it was white. He seemed reasonably young, about twenty-five or so.

Obviously a monk. There were no monasteries nearby, but Aedia had spent two years at one when she was sixty.

He extended a hand, and she took it. It was all hard muscle.

When she let go of his hand, she slipped forward. He caught her.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

"I don't think so…" she responded uncertainly.

He promptly scooped her up in her arms. "My name is Malark Dundragon, by the way," he said as they walked out over the dragon's treasure hoard.

"I'm Aedia Ilphukiir. Thanks for saving me," she replied weakly.

"This treasure belongs to you," he said. "I don't want any of it."

She was surprised, to say the least. "Surely you should—"

"I have no use for it. I prefer the life of a poor and humble monk to one of riches. It's yours to do with as you see fit."

"Well…thank you," she said, unsure of herself.

Malark carried her back towards the nearest elven village, where he assumed she came from.

"That's not my home," she said quietly.

"Oh. Where do you live?"

"I think I can walk now," she said, avoiding the question temporarily

He set her down and regarded her. Her skin was fair, tinged with blue around her cheeks and chin. She had raven-black hair, reaching just past her shoulders, and brilliant emerald green eyes, flecked with gold. Others her age considered her wonderfully attractive. She was also agile and strong, for a girl her age.

"So, where do you live?" he asked.

She looked down. Her voice was uncharacteristically high as she said, "The dragon killed them all."

There was a moment's silence. "I'm sorry," he said at last.

"Would you mind teaching me?"

"What?" he asked, his gaze snapping up from the ground to her face. "Oh…it's a hard life, you know. You have to sacrifice a lot, and must dedicate yourself single-mindedly to our art. Few elves can truly master the discipline required."

"I'm willing to do that. I've lost everything else…

"Very well," he said. "Training begins now."

Master Dundragon had taught Aedia for twenty years. Though she had grown up from a hundred-year-old girl (the equivalent of a thirteen-year-old human) to a real elf woman in every way, her master had remained looking exactly the same. A human should change physically a great deal in twenty years…

Aedia knew, though, that her master had such control over her body that he remained the same as when he first became a master of that control, when he was about twenty-five. He was actually much, much older.

The elf had yet to obtain such control over her body. She had barely managed enough control to knock arrows away with her bare hands, a feat that was one of the simplest a monk learned.

One day, Dundragon approached her. "I am old," he said to her. "You know this, but you don't really appreciate how old I truly am. I am as old as you."

That shocked her indeed. A human, living to a hundred and twenty! That was nearly unheard of.

"I am going to die soon," he said simply, resigned to his fate. "You will be forced out into the world, to leave this monastery and me behind forever.

"Take these," he said, and set four small items onto the desk from within his pockets of the folded shirt. One was a crystalline hand crossbow (sized exactly right for her), the tiny bow that was Aedia's favored ranged weapon. There was also a case full of the highest quality bolts.

There was a pair of daggers, as well. Both had crystalline blades, but had unique hilts. One was a shining, glistening silver metal—mithril, she guessed—carving of an eagle, which fit the curve of her hand perfectly. The other had a polished, lustrous black metal handle, a carving of a tiger, which fit her hand perfectly as well. "Adamantine," he said, smiling.

"I know you're ready. You've made me proud, Aedia," he smiled.

And with that, the master Malark Dundragon lied down and died peacefully.

Although her master had been perfectly happy and content when he died, Aedia's life was thrown into utter chaos.

It was the day before Midsummer when her master died, though she didn't now. Aedia had tried to go to a nearby elven village the next night. But the fair folk, her kin, had been dancing, singing, and frolicking in the woods…in her grief, she just couldn't bring herself to go to them.

So she went the other way, and walked across the open plains for about three miles, until she got sight of a road.

The road was about three miles south of the southern edge of the Border Forest, where her monastery was. She decided to follow the road south a little farther, and after about two miles she got within sight of a town. By the time she got there, it was nearing dusk.

It was a human town, with large, ugly stone walls. But just barely beyond it was a breathtaking waterfall, where water fell perhaps fifty feet to crash down in the ford below…

She saw a pair of humans, in their teens (Aedia wasn't that good at telling human ages, but teenagers weren't that hard to recognize), lying on the sheer cliffs near each other. They pulled each other into a passionate kiss, and Aedia smiled wistfully, wishing for a moment that she could have such romance in her life. But then she shook the thought away and entered the town.

It was called Dagger Falls, according to the guards. They let in a beautiful—for that's what she was—elf woman readily, and with a smile. Wasn't it Midsummer, the night of feasting, music—and love?

The young monk found an inn immediately—called the Welcome Wench (which disturbed her about human culture, but it seemed a fine enough inn)—and booked a private room for the night. Her room was of a reasonable size, about the size of her room in the monastery, and had a view of the town square.

There was a great feast going on in the square. Watching for a moment, she finally decided to go out and enjoy herself. Her master had been perfectly calm about his death—why shouldn't she?

Aedia went out into the square. She was immediately pulled to a human bard singing of the exploits of a wizard named Elminister, who happened to live about forty miles away.

After a song in which Elminister freed his homeland from evil magelords, only to give the crown to a noble knight who aided him in his quest, the charismatic bard packed up his lyre.

"Why are you stopping?" Aedia asked him.

"Why not? I'm allowed to enjoy the night too, aren't I?" he smiled at her. "By the way, I'm Endrin."

"I'm Aedia," she responded.

He walked around to her side and casually flung an arm around her waist. Aedia was uncomfortable—with the elves, relationships built up gradually for years before something like that ever happened. Plus, he was _human_.

But she made no move to remove his arm. If she were going to be accepted into human society, she would have to live with their customs.

And besides, she kind of liked it.

The next day was Shieldmeet, the "leap day" that was a day to make or renew pacts, have open council with your rulers, and prove yourself in tournaments.

Aedia planned to participate in the main tournament of fighting prowess. Endrin planned to watch and sing songs of the great exploits he told Aedia he knew she would do that day.

The tournament began at noon. Aedia was up first, due to random chance, against another elven woman named Anilla Liadon.

She started at one end of the square, in a corner. Anilla was at the other.

Immediately at the start, Anilla cast a quick spell, then jumped.

She leaped incredibly high, up to the top of the three-story building behind her in a backflip. Aedia stopped—she couldn't go inside the building, as it was locked and she didn't want to go around destroying private property.

She reached one hand into the folds of her loose shirt to draw her crystalline crossbow. It was loaded already, so she took it out with one hand, extending her arm—her favored way of shooting, as it left her left hand free—and aiming at the elf woman. Anilla released her arrow first, then another, but Aedia shot off a bolt as well.

Her left arm came up and slapped away the first arrow with the back of her hand. Then she did a front kick to knock the other away, and did a backflip to avoid the last.

Anilla couldn't do the same with Aedia's incoming bolt, and her reflexes weren't good enough to sidestep it. She took the bolt just above her knee.

She didn't pause, though, and a pair of white missiles of force shot out from her hands after a quick chant. She chanted once more, and a green arrow of acid shot out to Aedia as well, lingering behind for fifteen seconds.

She managed to get off another few bolts into Anilla, then ran around behind the building. Her clothes were ripped from the magical attacks, and she had a nasty burn in her stomach from the acid arrow, but she still could get a fine silk rope and collapsible grappling hook—the only other things she stored in there—out.

The rope wasn't quite long enough to reach anything, though—the only windows in the house were on the front, where Anilla could easily get to her.

So, after a moment's hesitation, Aedia undid the sashes on her shirt and tied them onto the rope. Without the sashes, her shirt was just a single piece of fine material over her chest—which fell off, leaving her shirtless.

More than one man in the audience smiled at that, and quite a few clapped and yelled, but Aedia just tuned them out.

The grappling hook latched onto the edge of the roof, and she began climbing up the rope quickly. She scaled the side of the building in a matter of seconds.

Anilla, who had been looking all around for her opponent, had just arrived at that end of the building. Aedia jumped up, using the end of the rope as a support, and kicked the elven woman with all her force in the stomach.

She came up onto the roof and spun around with a ridgehand to the woman's side. Continuing with her momentum, she slipped into a forward stance and did an open-handed thrust to Anilla's neck, which barely came short.

The young monk then continued in her spin with a roundhouse followed by a back hook kick, but both fell short—the archer had run back and put another arrow into the air.

This one the monk couldn't quite deflect, and it stuck into her forearm. Grimacing in pain, the elf pulled up a dagger from her boot—the one with the eagle handle—and let it fly.

With a sickening thud and a spurt of blood, the dagger pinned itself in Anilla's navel.

Priests rushed onto the scene, quickly healing both combatants. Aedia, to the cheers of every man there, held up both arms in a victory cheer—better showing off her bare breasts.

Aedia, of course, didn't have another shirt within five miles—she didn't think to bring one. And, because of the never-ending generosity of the townsfolk, the only shirt she was able to obtain covered about half of her chest, and nothing else.

Not that that was necessarily a bad thing. Endrin, in fact, loved it.

Aedia wasn't sure why, but for some reason, pleasing the bard in that way made her undeniably happy.

**Chapter II**

"Next time, think you can use your pants as ropes?" Endrin asked, smiling.

She just smiled back as he slipped his arm around her waist again. This relationship was going too fast, much too fast…to get this far, an elven couple would take years.

Maybe it should stop. After all, when Endrin was an old man, she would still be a young woman, not even halfway through her lifespan. Elves could live over seven hundred years; humans rarely lived to even one hundred.

But, she couldn't bring herself to think that far ahead, at least, not right then. Later…if their relationship even lasted that long.

Her thoughts were ripped from her as the next two stepped up. They were Shane Glendower, the halfling scout, and Kaison "Daggerlord", the human who took after his dale's name.

As the fight started, Shane acted immediately. He drew his bow and shot off an arrow immediately. It struck the lightly armored fighter in the upper thigh.

Then Kaison, shrugging away the pain, drew two knives from sheathes on his belt. He hurled one with deadly precision—the one he threw had some kind of fancily carved hilt, but she couldn't see it—into Shane's stomach. The athletic halfling tried to dodge, but couldn't quite manage it.

Then Shane rolled forward, dropping his bow and drawing a short sword along the way. He used the momentum of his roll to slam the blade into Kaison's stomach, drawing a good deal of blood as he did.

Kaison shoved his knife into Shane's small, twisting body, but Shane nimbly dodged the blow. He came up with a stab to the human's groin, and the match was over as Kaison screamed. Healers rushed out once again, and the victorious halfling strode grinning over to Aedia.

"We'll be fighting," he grinned. "Try and use a rope again, okay?"

Aedia just shook her head. She knew should be flattered that so many men considered her that desirable, but she was insulted.

The next two came up. One, a half-elf, wore hide armor, and had a club at his side and a sling at the other. The other was human, and he wore robes, a quarterstaff and shortbow both strapped to his back.

A spellcaster fight! _This should be interesting_, she thought to herself. Phadian Gess (the one in armor) and Miklos Tallstag (the one in robes). 

The match began.

Thalior started chanting first, followed quickly by Gess. Thalior finished his first.

A bolt of lightning shot out from his outstretched fingers. The blue bolt crackled into Phadian's armor and knocked him over, interrupting his concentration on the spell.

But Phadian got up, and shot a bullet at the chanting mage. Then he charged in.

But along the way, the druid shifted form into a great, muscular black cat—a panther.

The panther charged the surprised wizard. It pounced and bit him, managing to grab on and rake the man with its back legs.

Screaming in pain and covered in cuts, the mage cried out in surrender.

The next two competitors were the last two to fight; then would be Aedia against Shane.

There was Chiscorn, the half-orc barbarian—Aedia felt a swell of racial prejudice come up in her, but she suppressed it—against the sun elf (rare on Faerûn's surface, most lived on Evermeet) Eldrain Moonwalker.

The half-orc, clad in a suit of fine mithral full plate, drew a wicked-looking huge, curved mithral sword. The sword had a nasty serrated edge, and was lined with blood.

The wizard simply adjusted his bag of material components, then said, "Goodbye, uncivilized fool." That enraged the barbarian.

At the signal to start, Eldrain began immediately began a quick chant. As Anilla had done before, he jumped impossibly high, leaping easily to the top of the building behind him.

The barbarian charged the wizard, but didn't quite make it in time. He did manage to stop his charge in time, though.

With another reasonably short chant, Eldrain shot a tiny ball of fire from his fingertips. It overshot the barbarian by at least twenty feet, hitting the ground—

And exploding into a massive fireball that burned the barbarian badly.

Eldrain began chanting again as the barbarian took out a giant crossbow. It was already loaded, so Chiscorn took aim and fired.

The massive bolt slammed into the wizard, setting a huge amount of blood out to fall onto the rooftop.

Gasping in pain, the sun elf promptly laid down, becoming a harder target for the barbarian to hit—though it was still possible.

Another spell was cast after a second—the green arrow of acid that Anilla had used against him before. It struck out and hit the barbarian in his massive chest.

He didn't even notice it. He was too busy shooting Eldrain again.

The barbarian hit the sun elf once more, this time in the leg. The force of the bolt nearly severed the sun elf's thin leg at the knee.

Gasping, but refusing to give up, the mage managed to chant out another spell.

Three bolts of white magic shot at the half-orc, striking his armor with a resounding ring. The barbarian barely noticed, though he was now staggering. He reloaded his bow—taking about five seconds—and shot once more.

This time, the barbarian hit the mage in the forehead. His head literally exploded from the massive bolt.

A mass of both dark gray matter and bright red blood exploded onto the rooftop. There were several screams from in the crowd. Aedia looked away, disgusted both at the gruesome sight—and at the fact that the half-orc would possibly do such a thing. And in a tournament! This one wasn't even a serious competition—it was more for fun that anything else!

Priests rushed out onto the scene. The high priest of Helm levitated himself up to the rooftop and, thankfully, was able to raise the dead mage.

He turned angrily on the half-orc. "You'll pay for that spell," he said, venom dripping off his voice. "Both of us are now substantially weaker. That difference will come out of your pocket." 

As the sun elf rose unsteadily to his feet, then turned angrily on the barbarian, the half-orc grunted. "How much?"

The priest named a figure that made Aedia gasp. Three hundred thousand gold pieces…it seemed an insane amount to charge. But then she heard the high priest stumble through the simplest of healing spells, and then Eldrain through an even simpler spell that allowed him to read his spellbook (and begin preparing his spells), and it suddenly seemed too low.

"I don't have that much," the barbarian grunted.

"Then you'll just have to sell everything you own, won't you," the high priest responded icily.

"I still will have a tiny part of that."

"Then you will be in debt," he responded.

"Can I still compete in the tournament?"

The high priest didn't have any authority over the tournament itself, so he looked to the mayor.

"Well…yes. But let me warn you. If anyone else dies as a result of your action, it will be not just your money, but your life, that you pay."

The half-orc nodded.

"From now on, all fights are to be nonfatal _only_. That means don't try to kill your opponent, just try to knock them out." He glanced over Aedia's way. "I realize that gives the monk a slightly unfair advantage, but that shouldn't be too unbalancing. Also, I would like all contestants to know that public nudity is against the law in Dagger's Fall," he added with a pointed glance Aedia's way. "Although it has been allowed once, it will not be tolerated any more." A few smiles broke out at that—the mayor wasn't likely to punish Aedia for any repeat of her previous actions—what man would?—though any of the other people would be punished for sure—especially since Aedia was the only female to make it to the second round.

**Chapter III**

Aedia was fighting Shane next.

They stood in opposite corners of the now-bloody square. Just before the start signal, Aedia slipped into an open-handed defensive stance.

Shane drew his bow.

The signal came.

Aedia remained in her defensive stance while Shane snapped off an arrow. Aedia just batted it out of the way.

She then exploded into action, rolling forward, coming up in a jump, and landed with a solid blow to the three-foot-halfling's chest.

Shane dropped his bow and drew his sword, but Aedia snapped a powerful kick into the sword.

It snapped.

She followed through with a punch to his head, but he dodged and jumped to the side. He grabbed his bow and ran.

But Aedia was faster. She ran more than twice as fast as the tiny man, and charged into him with a punch—

The arrow Shane had stuck out gouged a long line along her waist.

She did knock him back with the punch, though. The halfling literally flew back, but he snapped off an arrow into her face as he flew.

She tried to block it, but didn't quite make it. The arrow scraped along her cheek.

The young monk leapt forward with another kick, an axe kick to his shoulder. The little man nimbly dodged, though, and her foot slammed into the ground.

He shot another arrow, but she slapped this one away with her forearm. Then she used the tiny bit of momentum she had from that and transferred it into a roundhouse, which caught the scout on the side. He was knocked around some by that, but stayed up long enough to get an arrow in on the other side of her waist from where he had cut before.

She felt something sliding away there, and heard men cheering. She looked down.

The little bastard had cut her pants off!

Enraged, she skipped forward with a sidekick, which he easily dodged. He took an arrow and, tauntingly, cut the strap on her mini-shirt.

It fell off.

Totally naked, the young monk brought her leg around in a big circle—painfully aware of what that was showing off—to snap the enraging halfling's head to the side.

She did just that.

Spinning around to hit the young halfling with a spinning roundhouse, using the full force of her long spin, she knocked the halfling straight out.

Angry at the annoying halfling, she nonetheless returned to the crowd (her pants held up by a borrowed belt, but still shirtless) and to Endrin. He offered her his shirt, which she gladly accepted.

The next match was Phadian against Chiscorn. She had no doubt as to whom would win, especially since Phadian had used up his only shapechange for the day. She still watched, though.

Phadian started out with a quick chant. As soon as it was done, about five seconds after (just as long as it took for Chiscorn to reach him) a cloud appeared right in front of him, which solidified and became a small—

Cloud?

When the cloud reached out and hit Chiscorn with an aerial fist, she realized it was an air elemental.

The elemental turned into a tornado, whipping into Chiscorn and throwing him about ten feet away. When the barbarian got up, the elemental was over there, beating him down again.

A tentative slash of his sword, then a stronger one…

The cloud disappeared.

But it had bought Phadian enough time to cast another spell. This time, a swarm of bats flocked out to the barbarian, nipping at him and shrieking.

They only stayed long enough for him to get a torch out of his pack and light it.

As soon as the bats disappeared, Phadian shot out a handful of flame at the barbarian. He just grunted it away and ran up to the druid, slapping him away with the flat of his blade in the neck.

Phadian was thrown down, unconscious.

The next match would be Aedia against Chiscorn.

There was a break, though, so they could both get some rest before fighting.

During the break, Aedia cautiously looked at her clothing. The shirt was by far too large, and it got in the way of her mobility. The pants, too, had to be dealt with with care, because they would quite easily slip down and hamper her movement.

She approached the mayor with this problem.

He asked if there were any woman about her size that would lend her clothes. One woman ran off to her house and came back with a very revealing set of smallclothes. Sighing, Aedia changed into them, strapping her crossbow and both knives at her sides.

She emerged back into the crowd to wild cheers. Self-consciously, she started stretching—which showed off her perfect form even more.

Finally, it was time to fight.

She started off in one corner, Chiscorn in the other.

Warily, she went into a defensive stance, with double knife-hand blocks, like before.

Chiscorn drew his sword and got ready to charge.

The signal was given.

Chiscorn charged.

As he came to her, she stayed still. Just before he hit her, though, she exploded into action.

She sidestepped his charge, then snapped off a roundhouse at the joint in the neck of his armor, using his momentum against him.

Her foot got hurt, but he was hurt more.

The wicked blade slashed around at her, one-handed, as the half-orc suddenly stopped and pivoted on one foot. She slipped to the side, though, her intuitive senses warning her of the danger.

Her leg came up and wrapped around the arm holding the sword. Then she grabbed his hand with one of hers, the guard of the blade with the other, and pivoted.

The blade was forced down, harmlessly away from her. But it snapped up, and, wrapped up as she was, it cut a line of blood on her taut stomach.

"What happened to nonfatal!" she said, accentuating the remark with a feint of an elbow jab that turned into a very real backfist to his underarm.

The barbarian just growled, slamming an armored elbow into where her wounded stomach should have been. But she, grabbing onto his shoulder had leapt up, spinning around over him, and slamming her feet into his ankles on the other side, knocking him down. She followed through with a spinning, two-finger jab to his eyeholes.

Aedia grabbed his sword's hilt again, then pressed down on its tip with her foot, slamming it into the concrete. She then grabbed her dagger with the adamantine tiger hilt by the blade in a way where it wouldn't hurt her, then slammed the hilt into his throat armor.

Both dagger and armor were made by dwarven craftsmen, of about equal skill. Both were about the same age. So it came down to a question of the harder material, and of the harder force.

The adamantine dagger hilt won that contest by far.

The throat piece was slammed in, choking the half-orc barbarian. But he still had fight in him, a lot of it.

As Aedia repeatedly slammed the dagger into the armor, Chiscorn brought his blade up. She was caught unawares of the danger.

The serrated edge cut through her back with all the force that the half-orc could muster, which was considerable. Cold, hard mithral cut through skin, muscle, and bone like a knife through so much cheese.

Screaming in pain, Aedia went down.

The sword had cut straight through the young monk's body, literally splitting her in half.

Two pieces of the beautiful elven woman laid on the bloody town square, split at mid stomach. An enraged paladin of Tyr, sword and shield drawn, and a priest of Helm approached the barbarian.

The paladin commanded the barbarian to lay down his weapons. When he didn't immediately comply, the paladin slammed his spiked shield into the half-orc's stomach.

Then he agreed.

The priest magically paralyzed the half-orc.

"You know the consequences of what you did."

The priest allowed the orc just enough control to nod grimly.

The priest began chanting.

The spell he was casting would administer justice—strict, eye for an eye justice—to the barbarian, as well as reversing the crime. Aedia would be brought back to life, exactly as she would have been if the fight with Chiscorn had never occurred. And Chiscorn would suffer all the wounds he had inflicted on the monk, including the killing blow.

**Chapter IV**

Everything went black for Aedia for a moment.

She was dead.

She was dead!

Slowly, ever so slowly, she began shifting into the spirit world—a flat, gray, featureless plain began imposing itself on the blackness.

But there was a call, a ray of color!

It was pulling her back to the world of the living!

Aedia began seeing colors, sights—they were so wonderful, even though she had been without them for only a matter of a minute or so.

And the sounds!

The first sound she heard was the beating of her heart, the blood pumping through her veins.

It was the most wonderful sound she had ever heard.

Slowly, the world came into focus. She heard the talking of the crowd, the concerned looks of Endrin and two people she didn't know.

Endrin was holding her. She was being held so that he faced her, but could still see the rest of the world.

She shifted in his arms, sat up.

And then she kissed Endrin.

The bard carried the monk, still kissing her, into a more private place—inside the nearest building, which happened to be an unused former inn.

After they stopped the first kiss, that long, wonderful feeling, for some air, Aedia stared into his eyes.

"I love you, Endrin," she said.

"I love you too," he breathed, and then they were kissing again.

Endrin's hands, behind her back, undid the clasp of her top. She started to pull back uncomfortably, but then went right back in.

His hands went to her front, then ventured lower.

Aedia woke up in the middle of the night. Endrin was next to her, some of him on top of her.

What was she doing?

She was an elf! He was human!

They couldn't be doing this!

But yet, they had. Not just once, either, but four times.

Four times!

But she realized, she didn't care. It was true that she would still be young when he was an old man, yes, but they would deal with that when it came. It was, after all, still thirty years away.

She was shocked at how human a thought that was. To an elf, thirty years was like a year to a human…and procrastination was much more a human trait than an elven one.

Her thoughts were broken as she noticed a crackling sound and a strange odor in the air.

Then she saw the fire, right next to the door.

She woke up Endrin immediately, then grabbed her daggers, crossbow, and bolts—she didn't even bother to put on any clothes—it would take too long. Endrin was snapped awake when he saw the crackling flames. He grabbed his lyre, already in its case, and searched frantically for another exit.

There wasn't one, so Aedia made one out of the rotted wall in the back.

Endrin climbed through frantically after she did. They ran around to the other side of the building. There was nothing that could have possibly started by itself. That left but one possibility.

Arson.

Grinning at the expanding fires, the man concentrated his thoughts again. After a second, a tiny puff of flame appeared in his hand, and he hurled it at another wooden building.

He suddenly slinked back into the shadows of the alley, seeing a pair of people come out from the first building he had lit. Grinning, he saw they were naked…and one was a beautiful elven woman…

He focused his mind, then faded from view. Even though he was hiding in the shadows, he disappeared entirely.

He took a few silent steps closer to the naked pair. It was hard to look at the woman without looking at the man, as they were right next to each other, but he did it.

She had not an ounce of fat on her body, but she wasn't skinny and knobby, either—her womanly curves (what elves normally had, anyway) were made by muscle, not fat.

Her breasts were perfect, large and bouncing as she stepped. He couldn't help himself…He returned to the alley, stripped, put his clothes in his pack, and set the invisible backpack down in the corner. Then, still invisible, he returned to the naked pair.

Thankfully, the man had gone off somewhere—presumably to the guard—and the woman had gone over to the building, where the fire still raged.

The crackling flames enhanced her wonderful profile. Unable to resist to his almost animalistic urges, the man went over to the elf.

She was bending over, looking at something on the ground…but then, before he could do anything, she arched her stomach back, bringing her arms up, stretching and yawning. The move brought her crotch forward.

He just couldn't help himself.

They were on the ground.

His invisibility was dispelled as soon as he thrust the first time. He had known that, but refused to remember it.

As he continued to rape her, she twisted her lithe body out of the way. The resistance just made it better…

Until she brought her knee up into his groin.

He nearly screamed in pain, but managed to control himself. Who would have known the tiny elf was so strong?

So he tried to forcibly flip her over, exposing her back to him.

But she rolled out of the way, bringing her foot up into his stomach.

This time, the man was more ready. As her foot hit him, an invisible wall of flames sprout up, burning the elf's foot badly. He then had time to put up his inertial armor, a wall of force as hard as a knight's armor—but it burnt.

The naked victim rolled up, grabbing a finely crafted dagger from the ground and slamming it into the back of his head.

It bounced off, and the crystal blade heated.

The pyro stood up and started running. He had supernatural speed—but then again, so did Aedia.

They were just as fast as each other were, but the pyro ran straight into the flaming building.

Flames licking along his body, the psion ran through the burning inn and became invisible once more. Then he grabbed his backpack and ran out of Dagger Falls.

Aedia had stopped running as soon as the rapist ran into the flames.

Then she laid down and started crying.

Endrin ran back with the town guard currently on duty—i.e., sleeping on top of one of the walls—and a water mage. The mage set about immediately by casting a spell that created a cone of icy cold in the building, making it too cold for the fire to burn on, then set out the other flaming building and rushed in, seeing if anyone was within.

He looked around for Aedia. After he turned the corner of the abandoned inn, he found her, sobbing and lying down.

He crouched next to her and gently laid a hand on her back.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

She sobbed out, a moment later, "I got raped."

**Chapter V**

A warm bath was made for Aedia, and she took it gladly.

After about an hour, she emerged. Endrin took Aedia then to his room in the inn he was staying at (the only one, other than the one she had used midsummer's night).

He gave her some of his extra clothes. They were too big for the tiny elf, but still were better than nothing.

The lovers then went to the high priest of Lathander, the most powerful priest in the city (after the high priest of Helm had sacrificed so much of his power to resurrect the mage). A powerful divination, one that allowed the high priest to commune with his god, revealed that the arson and the rapist were the same man (which Aedia had suspected)—a pyrokineticist named Ander Stormwind. The high priest was unable to garner any more information, though, and no one had ever heard of Stormwind.

It seemed that the only way to follow the rapist—and Aedia felt a burning desire to find the man, severely hurt him, and then turn him into the guards—was to track him through the woods. Phadian, the druid from the tournament, gladly offered his services.

Anilla, the archer/mage who had been Aedia's first opponent, also immediately offered to come with them. Aedia and Endrin gladly accepted her, as it was obvious Anilla did so out of kindness.

Less predictably, the halfling scout Shane—the bastard who had stripped her in their match—had requested to come. When he explained that the pyro had killed his sister, Aedia reluctantly allowed him to come.

They set out from Dagger Falls with only their equipment, a few days of trail rations (Phadian could hunt and forage along the way, though they couldn't move as quickly), and the government's blessings. They left on the morning of 2 Elaisas.

Phadian was an expert tracker, and followed the psychic's track easily enough. But suddenly, in an open field, the tracks just stopped.

They completely and utterly disappeared. Phadian searched all of the nearby plains. There was nothing.

Ander Stormwind smiled. He was perched in a tree, several hundred feet from the party looking for him.

A simple power manifested, and he was (invisibly) right next to them He then focused his thoughts once again.

When he finished, he simply breathed on the party, which had gathered together again to talk.

From his mouth came not the usual slightly warm air, but a huge blast of fire.

A cone of crippling psychic energy shot out once more. Most psionic attack forms didn't work very well; but this was a replica of the feared mind flayer attack, called mind blast.

It worked better against bonebrains.

The entire party, unable to resist his psychic might, was stunned.

With a grin, he summoned psionic bonds to hold his prisoners in place.

A teleport power and many grins later, Stormwind had his prisoners held in an underground dungeon of his.

Shunting the three males to a corner, the pyrokineticist turned on the elven women.

Aedia screamed. This time, with the psychic bonds holding her in place, she couldn't resist.

Then, after what seemed an eternity, the pyro laid down on his back, creating a pillow from psychic energy.

Then he mentally controlled the psychic bands, forcing them to move. The bands were located on the wrist, upper arm, neck, forehead, lower rib cage, waist, upper leg, and ankle of each of the women. However, the psion managed to control their whole bodies, breaking through even Aedia's mental walls.

Aedia and Anilla were forced to do some things that were meant for only men and women to do.

Endrin watched, tormented, as his lover was raped. He tried, tried so hard to get out of the glowing bonds, but he couldn't.

His agony became outright despair when, after the pyro decided to take a break, made Aedia and Anilla do similar things.

Mara Shemov, paladin champion of the Just God, rode hard on her rather unconventional mount. Her unicorn had been obtained only through a hard, long quest for her church, involving stopping undead fiends from destroying the Border Forest that was the (then) young female unicorn's home.

At Mara's whisper, the unicorn burst into a sprint. She had detected evil underground, though not deep enough to be a stray being from the Underdark.

When the evil being was directly below her, the paladin slowed the unicorn and dismounted. Landing lightly on her feet, the armored paladin cautiously drew her large shield and sword. Her mithral full plate, while great protection, was also incredibly light for such heavy armor.

She decided to leave her lance on her unicorn while she searched for a way in. The beautiful beast neighed and gracefully reared on its back legs. Most unicorns could speak, both the common tongue and the sylvan one, but this one had been robbed of that ability by an encounter with a ghost.

As she walked around, a part of the ground suddenly slipped away under her feet. She immediately jumped back, then started to dig at it from a distance with her lance.

After several pokes, the entire surface layer of dirt there fell away, into a tunnel.

Cautiously, she started down it.

Aedia, still under Stormwind's control, was lying face-up, Anilla on top of her. Both women were disgusted by what the psion was forcing Anilla's hands—and tongue—to do, but they couldn't resist his control.

A sudden crash surprised the psion, and he momentarily released his control. Anilla's hand shot up, away from Aedia, as did her tongue.

At the same time, Aedia tried to roll out from under the other elf, towards the psion. As soon as she did, she would leap up from the ground in a flying kick, the spin around into a ridgehand, then a blow to the neck…

But she couldn't move. The psionic bonds remained, though his control of the rest of their bodies was gone. 

Anilla remained on top of Aedia, though her hands and feet—the only things she could move, except for her face—were as far away from Aedia's body as was possible. That still left the rest of her body on the young monk, and there was nothing either of the women could do about that.

Or was there?

Aedia focused all of her discipline and focus on one single bond—the one on her right wrist, to start with. She attuned herself with the psionic energies resonating through it—she had no idea how, but she could see the very ectoplasmic makeup of the psychic energy.

Then, taking all of her focus and mental discipline, she managed to change that makeup, ever so slightly.

The flickering green bond shifted to a bright blue, and the monk's wrist passed right through it.

Grinning, the monk repeated the process for all of her other bonds. The psion was busy manifesting some powers, both in the form of ectoplasmic shields and some other powers, so he didn't notice.

Once finished, the monk slid herself out from under the other woman, who was wearing a shocked expression on her face. Then Aedia tried to free her, releasing the bonds that kept the archer levitating in the air.

But she had become mentally exhausted from freeing herself, and it would have been much harder for her to release Anilla of her bonds, even in a perfect situation.

And this situation was far from perfect.

Frowning and shrugging her shoulders, Aedia slowly, so slowly, stood up. She started moving, making no sound at all, towards the busy psion.

Suddenly, a human woman, clad in shining full plate, and with a gleaming spiked shield in her left hand and a longsword in the other, crashed down into the underground chamber through an entrance that was concealed in the rock wall.

The psion had been expecting this intrusion, had prepared a ball of fire to hurl at the woman.

As it came to her, she rolled to the side, still being burnt—though barely.

Then the woman charged in, but instead of using her sword, she rammed the psion with her shield.

As the woman was charging in, she channeled some sort of magical energy along her arm, into her shield.

__

A paladin, Aedia recognized. She was still slowly advancing behind the psion.

At the impact of shield to the man's chest, he was thrown back.

Straight into Aedia's sidekick from behind.

Impact with the man hurt, hurt like it would if she kicked a man wearing armor.

As she noticed the area just between her and him turn green, she knew.

Again she slipped into that almost meditative state of total focus. He spun around, to see Aedia, but then was forced to turn his attention to avoiding the paladin and attempting to manifest powers on her.

The field around him, though she knew it wasn't turning green in the visible world, did in her vision. It was a clear, flowing green, as it had been before. But the rest of the world seemed to almost tune out, slipping into the background.

Her keen elven mind concentrated on that inertial field of ectoplasm. She attuned herself to it as she had done to her bonds before, locating the nuances and flow of the astral material.

Especially, she attuned her foot to it. The inertial armor, she noticed, was…existing, was the only word she could use…at a chaotic, changing rate, managing to make a rock-hard field of armor with its unpredictable shifts.

But if she could set her foot to connect to the ectoplasmic matter in just the right way, using her own discipline to counteract the chaotic shield, it would negate the armor.

She set about that task, controlling her foot's exact movement with fine-tuned muscles. Once she believed she had gotten it exactly right, she turned to the pyro—now near her again, absorbing another blow with the shield through his inertial armor. The naked young monk laid out a slow, powerful sidekick.

It was perfect.

She saw the green ectoplasm shatter and fly in all directions. A screech, high, grating and changing, sounded.

It was interrupted by a single, melodic note.

In that moment of distraction, the paladin chopped off one of the pyro's arm with her longsword.

Screaming, Stormwind turned and tried to grab the elf with his one remaining arm. Knowing full well the burning powers of that touch, Aedia dodged, then snapped off a roundhouse to the now-unprotected man's stomach.

It burned her foot badly.

Grimacing, she jumped back as he tried to grab her once more. Then she did a jumping flip over both his and the paladin's heads. Following her, the pyro spun—

Straight into the paladin's spiked shield.

**Chapter VI**

The pyro, unconscious and bleeding in many places, fell to the ground after Mara got him off the spikes on her shield.

The paladin looked around, taking in the grim scene.

"He did this…?" she asked, noticing especially what was around the monk's groin, and the woman suspended in air.

Unable to take it—raped by the same man twice in as many tendays, taken prisoner, forced to have sex with another woman—she collapsed onto the paladin's shoulder, in tears.

Mara laid her hands on the young monk's back. The elf started to shift uncomfortably, but then the healing magic started coursing into her.

Aedia, tears still in her eyes, stopped crying after a short time. Then she went to all of her companions—Anilla first, but then Endrin, Phadian, and Shane—and removed their psychic restraints.

The five companions quickly searched the room for their belongings. Aedia was getting tired of being naked in front of complete strangers…in the tournament, after the fire, as a prisoner…even when Master Dundragon had saved her from the red wyrm.

Thankfully, her clothes (well, Endrin's clothes that she wore) were there, as well as her daggers, her crossbow, and her bolts.

Gathering them up, the young monk went to thank the paladin for saving them.

"I couldn't have beaten him without you," Mara replied, after introductions and Aedia's thanks. "I don't know how you did it, but when you shattered his psychic shield…"

Aedia shrugged. "I'm not quite sure how I did it either. I guess it's because his psionics is chaotic, my discipline managed to keep it in check, and then the weakened, brittle shield just shattered from my kick."

Mara led them back up to the surface. Waiting by the tunnel's exit was a female unicorn, a creature of great beauty and majesty.

"Are any of you hurt?" Mara asked. "A unicorn's horn has great healing power."

None of them were—Mara herself had managed to heal all their wounds.

As they talked about what to do with the pyro—who was bound with some rope Mara had in her saddlebags—the paladin approached Aedia.

"I have some clothes in my bag that might fit you better than those do," she offered.

"Do you?" she asked. "That would be wonderful." Though Endrin's clothes weren't bad clothes, they were just the wrong size for Aedia to have almost no freedom of movement in them. Normally, Aedia would have preferred to be naked, but for several reasons. This wasn't her monastery, or the woods around it, where the only one around was her master. Even if some elves happened by, the fair folk were much more accustomed to public nakedness, at least in small amounts.

But here, human culture was considerably different. Not only did the culture not accept public nudity, but there were at least a few complete strangers with her at all times.

And there was the fact that her lover could be insulted if she preferred to go naked, rather than wear his clothes. An elf wouldn't mind…but Endrin thought rather differently than elves, and his mind was as foreign to her as a Halruaan would be to him.

But if Mara was offering them to her, she couldn't very well refuse.

The clothes that Mara gave her were commoner clothes. They allowed freedom of movement, and weren't too revealing. They weren't as good as a monk's outfit, but she would always be able to pick one up later.

Aedia had gone a short distance away to change. Mara, seeing Shane watching, slapped him.

When Aedia returned, the others informed her that they had left it up to her to decide what to do with Stormwind. She had, by far, suffered the most from the man.

After a moment's consideration, the young monk decreed, "Take him to the Dagger Falls guard. They can decide what to do with him."

Stormwind woke up groggily. He was tied up, he noticed, and bouncing a lot.

The world, slowly, came into focus. He saw the face of that elf girl—that damning elf girl! Why did she have to be so beautiful? If she hadn't, none of this would have happened!

She was wearing clothes now, but not the clothes she had been wearing when she came. They looked like commoner's clothes, and covered everything from the neck down/ Why couldn't she have been wearing _that_ when he saw her that night? No, she just _had_ to be naked, standing right in the street!

Shifting his gaze slightly, he saw the slightly taller paladin walking beside the monk. That bitch…everything would have been fine, too, if she hadn't popped out of that passage he thought he had sealed up long before. Everything would have been so much fun…

And it went right back to that monk. He could have beaten the paladin if the stupid elf hadn't intervened—how had she escaped his bonds, anyhow? And how had she so easily shattered his inertial armor?

That damned monk. Why did she have to be so beautiful?

Looking down, he noticed he was bouncing along on a white horse. It had a flowing white mane…

He glanced forward.

The horse had a white horn.

A unicorn!

It must be the paladin's, he reasoned. She probably convinced it to accept him as a rider—normally they only carried human and elven maidens—for just long enough to get to Dagger Falls…or wherever else they were taking him.

Bouncing uncomfortably along, the psion found his gaze gravitating towards the elven monk. She had been the cause of all his recent problems, true; but she was still so beautiful!

Not missing his stare, the paladin slapped him with a mithril gauntlet.

Before long, the party had come to Dagger Falls. The guard on duty, as it was night, quickly opened the gate for the recognized heroes.

Endrin led the party to the guard headquarters, where they took Stormwind (still on the unicorn).

"Yes?" the guard just inside asked, bleary-eyed, and yawned.

"This is the man who caused the fires and raped Aedia," Endrin said. "We also have several more crimes to add to the list—he held us five prisoner, raped both Aedia and Anilla, and then tortured them with his psionics."

The guard was suddenly awake. "Take him this way," he commanded.

The psion was placed in a normal cell in the otherwise empty prison. He didn't seem depressed in any way at his predicament.

"Keep a careful watch over him," Aedia warned. "If you have some way to stop magic…"

The guard shook his head.

The young monk sighed, then shrugged. "I guess keep a crossbow on him. And always have one of us watching him."

Several uneventful days passed. Then, one night, it was Endrin's turn on guard duty.

He was sitting just outside the cell, but there was a loaded crossbow aimed for the sitting psion, and a door that allowed the bard to easily burst in, if need required.

The human took out his lyre and began playing an easy tune, just to get a break from the monotony. 

He glanced up suddenly as he saw a flash of blue light.

A shimmering door had just opened behind the imprisoned psion.

As the bard rushed to the crossbow, pulling the trigger, the psion stepped through.

The portal vanished just before the bolt reached it.

By the time it clanked off the stone wall, the bard was gone.

**Chapter VII**

Stormwind's portal had led to the roof of a nearby building. He was near the edge of it.

Behind him, he heard light breathing. Slowly, warily, he turned…

He saw two pairs of glowing red eyes.

Grabbing a ring tightly, the psion felt a change come over him—a familiar power surging through his veins, like when he manifested a power…but different.

Muscles bulged and skin toughened as the psion flicked his wrist, bringing out a huge greatsword.

As he tapped another part of his ring, he saw perfectly in the pitch-black darkness.

In front of him was standing a woman, a little less than six feet tall. She was thin, but not really that thin. She had on a strange, oriental-style top—sleeveless, with two belts crossing across it. Her shirt only went down to just above her belly button. She was also wearing a black cloak, a skirt with a long slit up the right side (and short black shorts under it). She was also wearing black leather combat boots. She had wavy black hair—with crimson highlights—and black horns sticking out of it, black with silver tips.

Not to mention the pure black snake on her arm, and the incorporeal shadow by her side.

The woman drew a scythe.

The greatsword came down, trying to cut the pretty young girl in half. But she nimbly dodged out to the side, and her snake leapt off her arm, biting at Stormwind's eye.

At the same time, the shadow reached out and grabbed the psion by the arm.

Stormwind had been touched by shadows before, but he was never ready—no one ever was—for another.

The touch drained away some of his newly found strength. He nearly screamed.

But he didn't, as he had to slap away the viper flying at him.

Then his sword came down, and the shadow next to him split in half.

The girl's eyes burned a bright red as she brought her scythe into him, cutting him with a good hit against the stomach.

The viper, though it had flown away, was instantly back, snapping at the psion's legs.

He merely brought his foot up, slammed it down, and then kicked the viper off the roof.

Another scythe slash, but the pyro parried it.

Then he came through with a slash of his own, which she nimbly dodged. Then her scythe came down at his feet.

The pyro leapt up, using his upward momentum to snap the girl's head up, nearly breaking her neck.

Before he even landed, she came up with a vicious cut along his inner thigh. He landed on the blade, painfully, but then slammed it down with the hilt of his sword.

Then he brought his own blade around in a cut to her arm that chopped off most of the flesh there, going straight through to the bone.

Even over the immense pain in his leg (not to mention his groin), the psion yanked his sword out of her arm and brought it forward to run it through her stomach.

But the shadowdancer dodged and disappeared, even her burning crimson eyes vanishing.

He saw her quickly enough, though. Her form had melted into the deep shadows around—but her abilities at hiding were no match for his keen vision—and darksight, due to his spell.

He brought his sword forward in an overhead chop, meaning to slice her in two.

But she ducked forward, and pushed.

The psion hurtled off the edge.

Shadow Kitamo grinned as she watched the man plummet to his death. He fell down and hit—

But he didn't!

The sneaky bastard grabbed an amulet, and then disappeared in a flash of light.

Shaking her head, the shadowdancer started to turn, searching her pack for a healing potion.

But an elven woman running down the streets caught her eye. She had long since lost her intended quarry, but this woman seemed interesting enough. Absentmindedly drinking the potion (and curing her arm wound), the shadowdancer watched.

The woman, with peasant clothes and bare feet, was tearing down the street. She suddenly turned as she passed Shadow and ran straight up the wall!

The elf then jumped off, spinning in midair and landing—not even breathing hard—right in front if Shadow.

"Did you see a man appear around here?" she asked.

"Yes, he attacked me. I fought back, and was about to win, but he grabbed an amulet and teleported away," she said, frowning.

The woman stamped a foot, frowning. "Damn," she said with vehemence.

Just then, her viper crawled up slowly over the edge. She rushed over to it and gave it a few drops of her healing potion, giving the serpent just enough to heal its wounds.

Then the realization hit her like a brick.

That bastard had killed her shadow!

Losing her companion cost the shadowdancer a great deal of personal power—not to mention that she couldn't have another for over a year.

When the angry shadowdancer turned back to the elf, she was gone.

Tebryn Baenre was lying down on his bed in the inn. The shutters were pulled shut, of course—the painful sun was still just too much for him. It was night out, true, but he didn't want to have to awake to the painful glare of the oppressing sun. He would be glad when he was done with his business.

There came a knock on the door. He grabbed the mask lying on the nearby table and slipped it on, changing his appearance to that of a surface elf. Then he took his scimitar and slipped it onto his belt, along with his wire garrote.

Slowly, he opened the door and peeked out.

Seeing Shadow, he smiled and let her in. As soon as the door closed, the drow took off his mask, turning back to his normal appearance. He dropped his weapons back on the table and sat on the bed.

"What did you find out?" he asked the slender, beautiful elf. Her viper slithered out of her pack, but her shadow was nowhere to be seen.

"I got attacked by a passing psion," she said dryly. "No, he wasn't after me," she assured him quickly, then went on to recount the night's events.

While she was talking, the girl sat down next to the assassin and casually wrapped an arm around him.

The dark elf was short, only about five and a half feet—but then again, so was Shadow. His white hair, naturally spiked, seemed entirely out of place on his handsome, thin (though muscular) body.

For no more reason than to show off, the drow picked up a stack of golden coins from the table and did a simple, though hard, common drow test of dexterity.

He stacked ten on each hand and casually flipped them up with a flick of his wrist. Twenty coins came up…

And twenty came down, each into the proper hand in the proper order, even facing the same way.

Shadow, ever the impassive one, just watched, barely interested. She had seen the drow do that feat enough times that it was no longer so impressive to her, though the trick was nearly impossible for almost every other humanoid race of Faerûn.

"Be sure to find the target again. I need to know his patterns, to know best when I might strike."

Jaer strode jauntily down the street. He was a monk, masterful enough that the town guard had accepted him as an enforcer with open arms.

Or at least, that was what he thought, and bragged about. Really, he was just average. The town guard had only accepted him because he was still better than the men they employed were.

Shadow trailed him effortlessly. It really wasn't that hard. A man who was six foot one, bald, and always clad in a white, flowing outfit stood out like an elf in a crowd of gnomes.

He had a set pattern, true to his lawful soul. The monk always went down the streets in a grid pattern, and always stopped at one tavern at the end—the Welcome Wench.

She trailed him for the rest of the day, then reported back to her lover.

Tebryn was sitting in a room at the back of the Welcome Wench, near the door that led to the outhouse. He was, of course, wearing his mask—donning the guise of a short surface elf.

The assassin was a member of the noble House Baenre. He had been an assassin his whole life, trained formally in Melee-Magthere (where he did poorly, as his talents didn't lend themselves to the fighting taught there) and informally by another assassin, Alak Coloara—who he later killed. He would have been forced into service for his House, which he despised—he so rarely would get a chance to actually kill another, except for the rare instances where his House went to war—very rare, as his House was the ruling house, and had few real competitors.

But he got release from the lifetime of servitude by joining the Lolth's Fangs, a group of mercenaries founded by a strange woman indeed. She was born a human female in the savage north, but when she tricked a Fang of Lolth into accepting her as a user (the items were designed to implant Lolth's favor in spiders) she started a hideous transformation into a half-spider. Kethra had fully completed that transformation shortly before founding the Lolth's Fangs, becoming a human woman with a free-moving jaw, an extra pair of legs, a dark chitinous shell, and other qualities of a spider. She was a fearsome and powerful woman, with Lolth constantly whispering into her ear.

His house had allowed him to join the mercenary band, on the condition that they work cheaper for House Baenre. Kethra had gladly accepted the assassin for that small price. The Fangs rarely did jobs on the surface, although the Zhentarim, the Cult of the Dragon, and a few other evil organizations did indeed use them for assassinations on the surface. An individual, a powerful wizard, had paid for this particular job—a rare occurrence.

Jaer, in his white, loose clothes, was easy to spot as he walked in. Tebryn nearly burst out laughing at the ridiculous appearance of the dark-skinned, tall man in bright white clothes, but wisely restrained himself.

The monk went over to the bar and immediately started drinking. The drow sipped his wine as the monk guzzled down beer, bragging to the nearby men about some feats he had no doubt never performed, or at the very least exaggerated to be unrecognizable.

It took a lot to get a monk, with their uncanny control of their bodies, drunk; but Jaer managed it. After an hour or so, he stumbled out the door to the outhouse. A surface elven woman walked by, and then, after a second, Tebryn followed.

There were two outhouses. Jaer stumbled into one, and the woman walked with all the fluid grace that came naturally to all elves (drow included) into the other.

Tebryn waited a moment for Jaer, then stepped in. There was no lock, of course.

The drunken man was standing in front of the hole. Hearing the door squeak, he turned—

Tebryn slipped his scimitar in between the man's ribs.

**Chapter VIII**

The artifact known as the Spectral Brand was a weapon of immense evil. Long ago, the skull of a lich had been magically set into the hilt of the scimitar, which only enhanced its power—and evil. 

The scimitar captured the souls of all those that it slayed, forcing them into the blade itself. This prevented any resurrection from taking place—a major plus for an assassin.

Also, the wielder of the blade could even call upon the souls stored within the blade, forcing them into servitude. Once a day, the sword could create a replica of itself, entirely annihilating the soul used. The replica fought on its own beside the wielder, assisting him in all ways possible for a few minutes.

Tebryn had plenty of souls stored in his blade.

The artifact had been in Sorcere, the school of magic in Menzoberranzan. Tebryn had stolen it, but framed another drow assassin—named Rizzen Pharn. He had been exiled to the surface, and Tebryn had later won it in a contest of skill.

Shadow had first met Tebryn by spying on him for Rizzen. He had caught her easily enough, but rather than kill him, he had fallen in love with her. True to the drow spirit of kindness, generosity, and predictability, Tebryn had demanded that his newfound lover serve him for some time.

Jaer managed a scream as his soul was sucked from his body—far more than any other victim of the blade—but one—had thus far managed.

And that one had been Tebryn's master, who predictably had a strong soul.

Tebryn winced at the noise. He should have silenced the door—it would have made things so much easier for him.

But he had forgotten, so now he had to deal with it.

The assassin quickly took a seemingly normal piece of cloth out of his bag. It really opened up into an extradimensional space, where he quickly put the body.

Using his mask, Tebryn took on the guise of Jaer, but added a long cut along his lower leg—seemingly from a sword.

He staggered, screamed again, and walked out of the outhouse. People came running, including the elf woman who had been in the other outhouse.

"What happened?" someone demanded.

He responded with a drunken slur of a few curses, then punctuated it with a scream.

People saw the blood flowing from his wound—the mask actually altered his body, so he had simply opened up the skin along his leg—and rushed to get a bandage.

He made another indecipherable slur. All the people nearby showed concerned looks—except one.

The woman suspected something, he saw. She was staring right at him, in a look first questioning, then a stare.

Suddenly, she struck a blow to his shoulder with a backfist.

There was a piercing shriek. People around screamed and started towards the woman—

Until they saw Tebryn.

Glancing down, he saw he was himself again. With a curse, the assassin started with a front flip over the heads of the crowd.

But the woman, incredibly agile even for an elf, leapt up and laid a single well-placed punch on his chest. He was shoved back down, onto the head of some unfortunate person on the ground.

Pushing off the injured man, Tebryn leapt up—a backflip this time—and drew his scimitar. He landed on the ground—the people gone by then, fled to safer places to watch—in a defensive back stance.

The woman started to leap up, so Tebryn shifted his guard high. But she hit the ground still a few feet in front of him, and rolled forward, coming around with a straight leg to his collarbone.

She then continued her roll, pushing off his collarbone, ending up facing his back. She immediately swept her foot around, attempting to trip him—but the assassin was expecting the move, so he jumped up.

But though he managed to avoid the sweep of her foot, he couldn't avoid the monk's hands—undeniably on his back, pushing him forward to land on his face. His hands flung out, and he actually managed to do a handstand, then come down and spin, facing his adversary.

He got his grip on the blade again, his free hand gradually shifting down. Finally, it reached his belt—and his shuriken.

One, two, three tiny stars flew at the monk.

And three went flying in entirely different directions.

Then he came to his hand crossbow, the favored ranged weapon of the drow. It was already loaded, so he came up and quickly aimed—he was ambidextrous, so he was fine with his left hand—and took a shot.

She tried to deflect it with her forearm, but it simply stuck in it.

Poisons began seeping into her body. But the monk focused, flexing muscles, and the poison could spread no farther.

Then she flexed a few more, and the potent poison dripped out onto the ground.

In the time it took her to do that, Tebryn had come in with the Spectral Brand.

Aedia snapped out of her meditative state in just enough time to grab the hand stabbing her. Then she twisted his arm and brought her knee up, and his elbow snapped.

A kick came to the neck, but never reached it.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a woman dressed entirely in black appeared. Aedia recognized her as the strange woman she had encountered on the rooftop the previous night.

Tebryn, escaping from her suddenly relaxed grip, did a backflip, landing lightly on his feet a few feet back.

Shadow came in with a sweep of her scythe, crimson eyes ablaze.

Aedia brought her hand up to the wooden shaft of the scythe, twisting the long, curved blade harmlessly away. Then her foot came up and snapped a front kick to Shadow's chest. The drow cried out, softly—though somewhat worried, "Shadow!"

Spinning, the monk managed to deflect the wire loop Tebryn was attempting to slip over her neck. She grabbed the handle of the sharp wire with one hand, striking his arm with the other, and then the garrote was in her hands. She flung it to the side.

A trio of shuriken, crackling with electricity, shot at the monk. She knocked away the first two, then dodged the third by arching her body back.

The shadowdancer's scythe slammed into the monk's arched stomach, sending blood flying in all directions.

Just at that moment, a mighty war cry was heard, and Mara slammed her spiked shield into the shadowdancer, throwing her back a few feet.

The monk doubled over in pain. She tried to focus her body, to mend the vicious cut.

She helped a little, but not enough.

But then, the paladin's hands went on Aedia's shoulders, radiating strength and power. Mara's healing magic mended the wound easily.

But with the pair distracted, both assassin and shadowdancer closed in for the kill.

Aedia, sensing the danger an instant before it came, leapt back, out of the path of the Spectral Brand. Mara was nowhere near so agile, but her shield managed to block the scythe's blow.

As his strike failed to hit anything, the drow assassin focused on his blade for a moment. A magical aura ran through it, stealing the soul of one of its trapped victims and forcing it into servitude, as a spectral blade.

Aedia took the moment to quickly study the dweomer of the magic blade. She located its stress points frantically, and struck out at one, taking her only chance.

Her hammer-fist struck the blade perfectly. Its result, though, was nowhere near perfect.

More magic existed in this blade than Aedia was yet able to handle. The blade took a hard hit, but it hit back.

A magical flash of dark, soul-stealing light; a bang of an eerie boom (Aedia wasn't sure how else to describe that horrible sound).

Aedia went flying.

Mara tried to drive her longsword through the unarmored shadowdancer's stomach, but found herself unable to hit the nimble woman.

At that moment, a ghost blade struck at her on the back. It may have looked insubstantial, but it certainly was a real weapon—the clang and slight ache told her that.

Then the real Spectral Blade found its way into the joint in her armor under the armpit.

She let out one final scream as her soul was sucked into the artifact.

**Chapter IX**

Tebryn walked over to the monk, lying facedown, sprawled across the now-bloody ground.

He spun her over, to land the Spectral Brand in her heart.

"Tebryn," Shadow said lowly. Not that she had any objection to killing the elf, but to do it in this manner, so…

She silenced her complaints, reminding herself that even if she cared, she wouldn't be able to stop him.

And she didn't, really.

Raising the scimitar, the drow started to plunge it down—

The monk rolled to the side and came up in a crescent kick, striking the dark elf in the chin.

Shadow, after a second's hesitation, plunged her scythe down. The monk, who had been parrying another blow from the Spectral Brand, spun and grabbed the shaft, then spun it, kicking Shadow in the wrist. Aedia brought the scythe around, continuing its spin, to make a long, painful gash along the shadowdancer's stomach.

At that moment, the viper leapt off her shoulder, biting the monk on the back. But the elf just focused her muscles, which served the dual purpose of removing the poison from her body and forcing the wound closed.

Aedia spun to deflect a shuriken she sensed flying at her from Shadow. Her forearm slapped away the trio of shuriken, then she leapt up, spinning and kicking the assassin in the face repeatedly.

But another trio of shuriken, electrified all, found their way into the monk's back. 

She fell, electricity coursing through her body, causing muscles to jump randomly.

Calling upon the last of her bodily control, the elf forced her body into the street outside the temple of Lathander, over six hundred feet away.

Tebryn frowned. Yes, he had performed the assassination, but the elven monk was quite powerful. And she had caused Tebryn's discovery…

The dark elf had quickly discovered, after the monk fled, that his mask's dweomer had been destroyed. 

He had immediately used his ring to hide both himself and Shadow in an extradimensional mansion. It was, suited to his taste, completely lightless—Shadow didn't mind, as her tiefling ancestry granted her darksight.

The assassin and shadowdancer had flopped down on the single huge bed. Barely visible servants brought them food (created by the magic) and potions of healing (which they had brought).

As Shadow finished a mouthful of her chicken, she said, "That monk is pretty damn strong."

Tebryn nodded.

"You think…"

"No," he said after a short pause. "Monks are more disciplined than that."

Shadow fell into silence again.

"Are we going back to the Underdark?" the shadowdancer asked, after a pause.

"Yes," the assassin replied, after a moment's consideration.

"But we're coming back."

Aedia was healed by the helpful clerics for no charge, as she was so grievously wounded. The young monk, after thanking them, was soon on her way.

She had to get Mara's body.

But first, the monk went to go get Endrin, Anilla, Phadian, and Shane. They were the only others who even knew Mara in Dagger Falls, and they should be with her.

On the outside, coming back, of the Welcome Wench (and shaking her head at the name), she noticed Mara's unicorn standing unhappily on the edge. She walked over to it and pet its long, white mane. Its fiery-gold eyes stared back at her.

Saddened, the young monk went on in through the inn, to the back. Mara's body lay there undisturbed, but a crowd of people was gathering around her.

The companions slipped through the crowd to the front, up to Mara's body. Gingerly, Aedia, Anilla, and Endrin began to pick her up.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" one man shouted, but Shane quickly explained that they were her friends.

"Where are we taking her?" Endrin muttered as they passed through the inn.

"To the temple, to see if she can be raised," Aedia replied promptly.

There was no priest within Dagger Falls powerful enough to resurrect the paladin.

"I can reincarnate her," Phadian said finally. "She'll come back in a different body, most likely of some other race—probably an animal. But she'll still have the same memories and personality."

Aedia frowned.

"She'll decide whether she wants to take the risk or not," Phadian added. "If it will even work; I may not be able to reincarnate her at all, if her spirit was truly trapped in the blade. But there will be no adverse effects, even if I fail."

Aedia nodded. "Go ahead, then."

It took over an hour for Phadian to cast the spell. Mara had decided to be reincarnated.

When the process was nearly complete, a magical outline began to appear. Mara's new body was huge, about ten feet tall.

It was a giant bird.

The bird had a wingspan of easily twenty feet. After the outline solidified some more, it was apparent that the paladin would be a giant eagle.

Finally, Phadian stopped his chanting and hand motions. He collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

The giant eagle took a few tentative steps, then flapped her (Aedia assumed that Mara's new body was female) wings.

"Thanks," she said, in an uncertain voice that sounded like it was just barely away from a screech.

A few more tentative flaps, and Mara started running awkwardly, flapping her wings. Then she took off, and she was flying.

She was flying!

The experience was far beyond anything she had experienced in life, outstripped everything by far. She climbed up high on a draft of hot air, then ducked her wings and dived, going faster, faster, faster, impossibly fast—

And then she was out of her dive, just barely above the tops of the buildings, all of her height traded in for speed. She was flying impossibly fast, out over the river…

Finally, when she was tired, she landed back in the courtyard behind the temple, where her friends waited.

Including her unicorn.

"You can go home now, back to the forest," she said.

The unicorn looked confused.

"It's Mara, the one who saved you. I'm letting you go home now," she said again.

Anilla walked over and put a hand on the unicorn's back.

"How old was she when you rescued her?" the elf asked.

"I don't know. It was a few years ago. She was still very young."

"She may not be able to survive on her own," the archer, wise in the ways of the forest, explained. "She may not know how."

"Then what do I do?" Mara asked, distressed. Then, calmer, she said, "You've had some training on horseback, haven't you, Anilla," she stated more than asked.

Anilla nodded.

"You can ride her," she offered. "It's not like I can, and she can't go back to the forest…"

Anilla looked up at Mara, her face positively beaming. "You're sure?"

Mara nodded, a strange thing to see a giant eagle do.

"Is it okay with you if I ride you?" Anilla asked the unicorn softly, in the sylvan tongue.

The unicorn nodded slowly, gracefully.

Anilla hopped on, but waited to remove all the riding equipment from her. Anilla preferred to ride bareback.

As much as Mara had just enjoyed flying, Anilla was by far the happiest one that night.

**Chapter X**

Ander Stormwind lurked in the shadows, in the form of a tiny mouse. His vision was strangely distorted, but he could still see. Both hearing and smell were elevated to levels he had only rarely felt before.

"You're sure?" came the voice of that elf, Anilla.

Then, a moment later, in the sylvan tongue, "Is it okay if I ride you?"

The psion, fed up with not being able to see normally, scurried around into a corner and then polymorphed into a cat. Slowly, gracefully, he sauntered around the corner.

Playing the role of the cat, he froze at the site of the giant eagle and the unicorn, knowing instinctively that the eagle was his enemy. A low growl came…

Shane glanced over, saw that it was just a cat, and looked back to the elf and her unicorn mount.

Suddenly, there was a bark from behind him, preventing him from seeing any more. The dog chased after the psion in cat form, forcing the pyro to scramble up a nearby tree and listen to the dog's constant annoying barks.

He waited patiently. The psion had plenty of time.

It was night, but the psion was still in his cat form. He had permanently changed himself into a cat—until he manifested another instance of the psionic power, changing himself back.

A tiny ball of flame appeared, floating next to the psion. The party was staying in their respective homes, though Aedia and Endrin were both in an inn. It was on a tree outside that inn that Stormwind was perched.

The ball of flame shot out, into the very room where Aedia and Endrin were sleeping, onto their very bed.

The pyro grinned inwardly—his cat form couldn't physically—as he watched the lovers frantically throw on robes and run out of the room. The chaotic and evil man took pleasure at the screams and visions of people dying to the flames, disappointed only that he hadn't managed to kill neither bard nor monk.

Aedia and Endrin, both in nightclothes, Aedia with her inherited weapons in hand and Endrin with his lyre, ran out onto the street. Aedia frantically searched for the evil man's psionic aura, knowing it to be around.

She found one, up in a tree near their window. It wasn't the size or shape of the pyro, but she knew it was him—not only from his particular psionic presence, but also because of the fact that psions were so rare across Toril.

Pointing him out to Endrin, the moon elf slowly drew her hand crossbow and loaded it.

Ander, noticing the monk surreptitiously loading her crossbow, smiled. Now he had a chance to try out his most recently discovered power.

Focusing in on the woman, he smiled. It would kill the young monk, but that was okay. There were others.

Rips and tears in the fourth dimension, caused by entirely unstable ectoplasm, folded around the young monk.

A terrible, horrific scene wretched at the young elf's mind. It was the vision of her future death. That wouldn't have bothered her so much if it was a valiant death, one fought in a proper battle, or even one of old age or disease.

But it wasn't.

The scene assaulting her was an image of Aedia pushed up against a wall, held there by a finely crafted sword, blood flowing freely from the wound in her stomach—the stomach of a pregnant elven woman.

And Endrin was holding that sword.

Suddenly, her stomach was bleeding; there was a horrible pain there.

It felt as if a sword was being held there.

But with all her discipline, all her mental prowess, she managed to bush back the image, to deny it as a fake, crafted by Stormwind to kill her, or at least hurt her badly—emotionally and physically.

Despite the fact that she knew that it was true, intellectually recognized it as a vision of the future—one possible future—her heart denied it. And in this case, her heart was controlling her mind.

The wound in her stomach closed.

The drow Dinin Illystan frowned at his "associate's" unbidden entrance into his room. The dark elf had been meditating for a dual purpose—because he was a sorcerer, and needed to attune his body to the magical energies this day, and because he was a monk, that required meditation for discipline and focus.

Slowly, the tall dark elf stood up from his cross-legged position, looming a full six inches over Tebryn.

"Yes?" he asked, his voice as sweet and melodic as a halfling's on dwarven ale.

"Our…employer has instructed me to assassinate a monk on the surface, who was weak and easy. But I was confronted by another monk, this one a surface elf girl. She was quite powerful. She was quite a powerful adversary, and with the help of a paladin, she almost overpowered us. I killed the paladin, though, and almost the monk; but she slipped through a dimensional door, escaping to a nearby temple. She had destroyed the dweomer of my mask along the way; I was forced to sneak back to the Underdark only under the cover of night, cautiously.

"When I informed Kethra, she immediately signed this monk's death warrant. But she asked me to have you accompany me," he explained. "And Shadow," he added quickly, as an afterthought.

The monk nodded. "Very well. When do we depart?"

"How long do you need for your meditation?"

The sorcerer frowned. "I need about an hour to prepare."

Tebryn nodded. Referring to the magical timepiece for Menzoberranzan, he said, "So when Narbondel is at its lowest, we depart."

Ander quickly followed through on his devastating psychic attack with a cone of psychic force that rippled the very air, the mind blast attack that illithids so favored.

Endrin, through a combination of luck and anger—anger at the psion for brining down the building, for killing those people, for capturing the party, for Aedia's rape—managed to repel the attack, though at a cost.

Aedia, still recovering from the recent, devastating attack, couldn't.

The monk was stunned by the sheer psychic power of the blast. She stayed on her feet, but swooned, unable to control her body more than to look around with her eyes, not even capable of moving her head.

The bard, surprised at his resistance but his lover's submission, still immediately pulled out his lyre. He began playing a tune, a slow, low, entrancing one.

Wordless singing accompanied the notes, enhancing the effect tenfold.

Slowly, a weave of rainbow-hued, glowing patterns appeared over the psion.

The flickering, beautiful lights captivated him. Slowly, they started moving a little closer, bit by bit, to the singing bard.

The psion followed, hopping out of the low tree branch to stay with it.

Aedia came out of her stunned state.

She absorbed the scene in an instant, but seemed wary of the rainbow pattern.

Endrin incorporated a few words into the song.

"Don't worry, they won't hurt you," he sang, his voice rising and falling with the low, captivating tune.

Smiling with the information, Aedia backed up, then ran and soared into a flying sidekick.

The heel of her foot connected squarely with the pyro's back.

He spun, flames igniting around his body instantly when she struck him.

He grabbed a ring as Aedia flipped back, drawing and loading her crossbow in midair.

A white aura surged through him, appearing around him. Focusing, Aedia found several psionic auras encompassing his body, and one magical.

The flames were one such aura, and the inertial armor she had shattered before, having reformed, was another. There was one more psychic aura around him, though. After a second, she identified it as a shield.

The magic aura was the one that her sensei had taught her of. It allowed the user (almost always a mage) to become much stronger, more agile, and more skilled with weapons, though it denied them the ability to cast spells and (Aedia hoped) manifest powers.

Another aura flared into existence for a second, then disappeared, as the pyro flicked his wrist.

A greatsword, flames licking the blade, popped out of an extradimensional space in his glove.

The elf noticed Endrin doing something with his lyre behind the psion, but just blacked him out, like she did everything but the immediately surrounding terrain and her opponent.

The pyro came down in a slow, powerful (as all greatsword attacks inevitably are) vertical swipe, attempting to slice the young monk from shoulder to hip.

She rolled forward, under the blade, through his legs. As she rolled under, she stuck her bare foot up, to slam it into his groin with tremendous force.

It bounced off, feeling as though it had hit a brick wall.

A _flaming_ brick wall.

Her foot burnt badly, she nonetheless continued her roll.

"Should've known there's nothing there to hurt," she remarked lightly, though she knew—from unpleasant personal experience—that there was indeed.

He turned, whipping the blade through the air so fast it whistled highly. Even the nimble elf couldn't dodge it, so she futilely flung up her right forearm to block it as she twisted—a reflex that hurt more than it helped.

For the blade, with all its force, cleared through the skinny—but muscular—appendage cleanly, then continued going to cut her along the upper side.

Aedia screamed in pain.

Endrin, seeing his lover's forearm get cut off by the massive blade, immediately began a soft but reassuring song of healing.

The wound stopped the bloodflow, though it remained a stump. The long gash along her side closed, the edges of the flesh bonding together as if they had never been separated.

The bard then went on in a rousing, inspiring song with a long crescendo. It would quit probably help his lover to fight back.

Tebryn, wearing another mask of the same type he had had before, strolled down the streets with Shadow openly. She also had a mask, and they appeared to be a pair of middle-aged for humans, married.

Dinin, wearing another mask, was a human child, of about eleven years. He walked behind them, playing the role of a sulking young boy perfectly.

The burning building caught their eye, and the trio immediately set off for it. No doubt the altruistic monk would come to help.

Just outside of the building, they slipped into an alley for just an instant to switch guises. They became a trio of humans, just barely adults. Tebryn was a man, while Shadow and Dinin became women. Wrapping his arms around both their waists, the assassin set off towards the burning inn.

As they approached the building, Tebryn pulled away from the other two, running ahead to a nearby guard.

"What happened?" he asked.

The guard was staring at something going on. In the dark, Tebryn's flawed human eyes couldn't quite see—but he reformed them to drow eyes, and saw perfectly.

The monk was fighting a large man with a greatsword. Behind the man, another man—obviously a bard—was playing a lyre, working its music into magic.

The guard stared at the fight between the amazing combatants. It strained his eyes, but he didn't even notice. He was so absorbed that he barely noticed the young human man, standing next to him, and paid him no heed as he walked behind his back.

He was so absorbed that he never even noticed the wire loop coming over his head, until the assassin pulled it, the magic of the garrote cleanly severing the man's head.

**Chapter XI**

Dinin, seeing the guard's death, changed form again, so that he was in his normal drow body.

The drow immediately began a low chant and some hand signals, finally taking a rubbing of licorice root and rubbing it on his skin. During the chant, Tebryn whispered, "The monk first, then get the other," before going off on his own.

As soon as he finished, the monk, nearly twice as fast as normal—allowing him to cover the hundred-fifty feet in just over five seconds—ran in with a flying kick, attempting to hit the now-one-armed monk in the side.

But the agile monk flipped back, and Dinin nearly soared straight into the blade. But he managed to roll aside in midair, avoiding the potentially lethal sword.

As the monk landed, rolling to absorb the force, Shadow entered the fray.

A shuriken flung at the man's eye, which he dodged. Another was thrown, and another—

He couldn't dodge one, but it bounced off the force armor on his face.

While Shadow was flinging shuriken, Aedia and Dinin began fighting.

The surface elf tried for an open-handed strike to the drow's neck, but found her wrist caught and twisted by the dark elf.

She happily went along with the twist, though she was spinning around faster than the drow had intended, and in a different way.

Her foot came up as she came around, but the monk jumped up—his hand still on the other monk's wrist—spun, and slapped her in the face with both his feet.

Or, he tried to. Except that Aedia simply flung her head back, to dodge the blows.

But as the drow landed, she decided to continue with her momentum. She flipped back—her wrist still being held—which forced the drow towards her, into her kicking foot.

It was a complex and risky maneuver. Though she did manage to hurt the man, they both ended up on the ground—with the drow on top.

Suddenly, the drow exploded into furious action—moving so fast, that he _had_ to be using magic.

The drow kneeled, then came out in a flurry of punches. The monk was hard-pressed to block them all, and several even got past her agility to land, hard, on her lithe body. But the ones that missed crashed against the ground, bloodying the slender drow hand.

Shadow brought her scythe across, hard as she could, in an attempt to split the man across the side.

He had killed her shadow.

He arched his body back, then backed away. Shadow started after him, but he made an impossible running jump—at least thirty feet above what was strictly possible—to a nearby rooftop.

"A mage," she breathed.

Hearing her, Ander cackled, "If only you knew."

After just a second, a line of crackling flame reached from his hands to the shadowdancer.

Even with but one arm, the surface elf was doing well in her fight.

Aedia rolled out from under the drow, taking another hit along her side as she did so.

She leapt to her feet, bringing one foot up in a front kick to the other monk's chin.

He turned his head and neck aside, avoiding the worst of the blow, but her toe still grazed his neck.

The ebon-skinned elf rolled back, away from her, and got to his feet.

Endrin, confused by all the newcomers and the ensuing fight, faltered in his magical music for a moment.

Then he began again, weaving the notes into a brand new melody, one he was improvising as he went along.

But it was one he knew would work.

The edge of the building, in front of the pyro, expanded just a little bit, unnoticeable unless you were paying close attention.

But it was an illusion.

Tebryn held his bow drawn, ready to fire on the monk with his magical bow once he got a good shot. He had used magic to become a nearly perfect sniper, so he had a shot aimed for the monk's neck—a shot he knew he could make.

Aedia feinted with an elbow towards the drow, then turned it into a very real backfist, followed through by a knife-hand strike to the neck and a roundhouse.

The training of her sensei was allowing the fight to almost slow down before her eyes. A combination of adrenaline and discipline increased her thought processes and reflexes by so much that even the fastest flurry of either of the skilled monks seemed a turtle-slow blow—aided by the fact that the drow's magical speed had since run out.

Her intuitive danger sense perked up, and, trusting her instincts, the monk brought up her hand—her left, the only one now—up, catching the arrow streaking in, faster than anything she had ever seen (even slowed down) at her neck.

The arrow burned with a cold, life-sucking force. Aedia immediately dropped it.

But this left her without hands, open to a single powerful punch from the drow monk that sent her flying.

Mara, since it was night, was sleeping in an abandoned stable. Her new giant eagle form would take some getting used to.

Her keen ears picked up noises, noises of a fight, that awakened her from her light rest. She flapped out of the open doors, towards the fight.

Phadian, too, was awakened by the noises of battle. He rushed out to the burning inn, and, seeing the fight, immediately rushed to his friends' aid.

After a moment of shock at seeing a dark elf and a very strange surface elf—and Stormwind!—he cast a few spells.

He started with a prayer of healing, restoring Aedia to full vitality. She wasn't really that hurt, but he did it anyway.

Next came a calling spell. It brought a huge, ferocious tiger—a dire tiger.

The great striped beast went to the drow Aedia was fighting, gracefully, with muscles rippling at every bound, loping to him.

Phadian began on another spell, but stopped almost instantly when a strange pain found itself in his throat, right on his voice box.

He found himself unable to talk, then felt something warm spread down over his chest. There was an incredible pain, far beyond anything he had ever experienced before in his two and a half decades.

Then there was black.

Mara screeched, in a very eagle-like way, as she swooped down.

It was hard to see in the darkness, but she would make do.

But then the little amount of light became none at all, and there was complete blackness.

The giant eagle pulled up out of her dive, flying slowly in a circle, as slowly as she could to stay aloft. She had to be careful not to crash into anything, especially the burning inn, so she rose up higher.

The assassin drew back his bow again, taking aim once more on the monk.

She was engaged in quite an interesting fight with the drow monk. Their fighting styles—as well as their skill levels—were similar, making the dance of the skilled monks all the more absorbing.

But they still had a few fundamental differences. Both elves were incredibly agile and impossibly fast, but Aedia's lack of an arm put her at somewhat of a disadvantage.

Still, Aedia had received healing twice so far, and she was a little more skilled in the first place—at melee combat, at least. The match seemed to be dead even.

Emphasis on dead.

Tebryn let fly another arrow of blackness.

Aedia dodged this one, rather than leaving herself without a hand for a moment—a major disadvantage to her, especially in this position.

The assassin inched forward, to the edge of the building, so that he could get a better angle. His magical affinity to that particular spot faded, but he could move back after that one shot.

But he wasn't able to, as he fell straight through the edge of the building.

The barbarian Baine Koldiziier rushed into the walled town, merely shoving past the guards at the entrance.

A fight!

He drew his double-bladed axe, forged in the orcish style and enchanted heavily by a mage "friend" of his.

A fight!

The half-elf—quite a rare race for a barbarian, but he had no choice in the matter—ran through the dark streets, to the flaming building and the sounds of battle.

The sounds of a fight!

"Tempus!" he roared.

Aedia wrapped her one arm around one of the drow's. She would never have considered doing this, with but one arm and her enemy having two, but she had a reason.

She spun, both sending the dark elf's punch flying wildly in the wrong direction, and jamming his arm around in its socket.

Her foot went up, slamming once, twice, three times into the drow's stomach.

A wild roar of "Tempus!" caused her to rotate her angle of attack, so as to be able to see the incoming person—

A wild man, muscular and fast, was running at them.

He was a half-elf, quite strange for such a strong and wild man, but the spiky blue hair and tinge of blue skin made it obvious.

As he roared again, Aedia sent another kick flying into the slightly shocked drow's stomach.

Baine charged in, waving his glowing axe as he set out to see which side he would choose.

There seemed to be three sides—the dark elves and another elven form with dark clothes, the elven martial artist and a bard, and a rogue mage of some kind.

He just charged randomly in, not bothering to do any more analysis, though he was more than capable of doing so.

The barbarian went for the bleeding drow down on the ground. He had obviously fallen from the building nearby, but why, he couldn't fathom.

Lifting his glowing axe, he chopped off first one of the fallen dark elf's arms, then a leg, then went on to less helpless prey.

Stormwind had held that line of flame for some time, its crackling power surging through him, lifting his spirits.

But the fire was running out, becoming less intense, less focused.

And the tiefling, all of her equipment burned, her metal weapons unbearably hot, and her scythe's wooden handle aflame, finally managed to roll to the side.

But her body, and her clothes, were untouched.

As the pyro used one of his basic talents, he detected a magical ring on the shadowdancer's left hand. As he concentrated, a blue aura came into focus around the tiefling woman.

The aura of a fireshield.

It was made of cold.

His pyromaniacal mentality burst aflame—a fitting, and common, reaction—at the realization.

An even stronger pillar of flame burst down from the night sky.

Shadow's ring burning cold on her finger, her body chilled to its core, the shadowdancer was once again frozen in a tiny, tight-fitting screen of cold.

The ring countered the flames by chilling the air around her. It worked fine in almost every other case, including countering cold, even acid and electricity.

But with fires this intense, the ring had to actually freeze the air beside her to stop the flames from reaching her. Any less, and she would be burnt.

Ice, that close to her, couldn't move, so she was stuck in her position. And, because of how she had been standing (leaning back a little), she had to actually rest on the ice…dangerous, because if the ice either melted or went away, because the power ran out, she would probably end up falling.

But the fire around her didn't seem to be waning, but rather growing stronger. The ice was forced to become colder, thicker, to protect her from the raging flames.

Shadow could no longer feel her left hand at all, because of the pure cold of the ring. And eventually, she couldn't feel anything…it was just too much cold.

The elemental protection may have been hurting more than it helped.

Her heart was beating fast, faster than she could remember it ever having in recent memory.

She suddenly wondered how she was breathing, but pushed that thought away, not questioning the magic.

Her heart slowed down, its beat becoming a slow but steady _thump_ in her chest, the only thing she could hear. The raging flames were slowly becoming invisible to her; the ice was becoming gradually opaque.

Her senses cut off entirely from everything but her body within the ice.

It wasn't until then that Shadow remembered she was claustrophobic.

But suddenly, it didn't matter.

Everything was just slowing down, jus…

Baine ran over, in a wild frenzy, to the nearby wall, and began scaling it.

In his rage, focused on the fire-wielding man above, his intended target, he didn't even notice his arms passing right through the vision of the wall about two feet, just thought the wall was just where it really was. He didn't even notice Endrin's illusion.

The pyro, intent on channeling his psychic power into the fires, didn't notice the oncoming barbarian.

That was, until his blue, glowing, double-blades axe cleared the rooftop.

The pillar of flame shifted from the half-tiefling to the barbarian next to him. But the shadowdancer's layer of ice remained, not melting or vanishing.

Shrugging, the pyro focused his psychic might onto the raging barbarian.

The flames streaked down, enveloping the barbarian in a pillar of raging fires…

But the half-elf, much more hardy than the previous victim—and unhindered by a layer of "protective" ice—simply charged out of it to bear down the psion with his axe.

The axe swept across, would have easily severed the pyro's head from his shoulders—

Except for his armor of force. It _clanged _off the man's neck, the area just around it glowing a brilliant red.

Then the red expanded, covering the entire pyro's body with a nearly transparent red glow. Hopefully, it would intimidate the barbarian, whose kind was often fearful of such displays of "magic."

No such luck. The barbarian, slightly frustrated but not afraid in any way, came again in a powerful offensive routine, slashing at all the common weak points of physical armor.

There were none in the psion's mental shield.

So he tried another time. He simply brought his axe, hard as he could, across to the pyro's chest. He was manifesting a power, so he wasn't able to dodge and weave like he normally would.

The blow struck right through the inertial armor, cutting a horrid gash along the man's chest.

But the power that had just been finished, right before the blade struck, managed to partially redirect the blow, and, rather than actually hurting the pyro, just hit him in a way so as to knock him out.

But some of that redirected force was sent to the barbarian, buffeting him with psychic force.

The axe swerved back again, an instant later, but it found no target.

Stormwind had walked up on the air itself, leaving fiery footprints. He now stood about ten feet off the ground, out of the barbarian's reach.

"Think you can beat me, do you," he said, lowly, venomously.

"You know not the power of fire!"

Flames shot out from the pyro's outstretched fingers, dancing over the enraged barbarian.

"Maybe not," he grunted. "But I know the power of poison!"

He stooped down, grabbing the black viper on the rooftop.

He hurled it at the floating pyro, hitting him on the neck.

Fangs first.

Dinin managed to twist out of Aedia's grasp, attempting to get her with a hook kick to the side of the neck.

But the nimble monk slipped her upper body back, then landed a well-placed roundhouse to the other monk's stomach.

He rolled back nimbly, and began casting a spell.

But Endrin's song was reaching a crescendo, the magic intertwined with its music coming to heights she had never heard before.

She leapt forward in a flying sidekick to the spellcasting monk's midsection, her kick spurred on with even greater than normal strength by the magical notes of the inspiring song.

She followed through with a spinning hook kick, then an open-handed neck strike and a roundhouse to his head.

The dark elf's head actually spun around to be facing directly backwards. Aedia thought she heard something snap, but she wasn't sure how, seeing as the music was so loud and wonderfully absorbing.

Stormwind's neck screaming out in pain, he nonetheless managed to concentrate his inner powers on one last spell. It was hard for two reasons—he both had to spend the very last of his psychic power he had stored for that day, and, of course, there was the small matter of the viper.

But he did it, and his body was whisked away to a small underground cave.

All their enemies gone, Aedia staggered over towards her lover, then collapsed into his waiting arms.

**Chapter XII**

The priests of Lathander gladly healed Aedia and Endrin of their wounds—even Tebryn was healed, to be brought to trial by the town guard. Apparently, he had a ring that allowed him to survive, even while nearly dead. It stanched the blood flow, and even magically reattached the limbs that had been severed by the barbarian's axe.

The half-elf barbarian had left soon after fight ended, refusing any type of healing or even thanks. He had gone to wander the savage wilderness, in search of another fight.

Aedia was forced to remain lacking a forearm, as no priest in Dagger Falls was powerful enough to restore it. But, when she was fully recovered and rested, one of the higher-up priests approached her with a gift.

It was a fabulously crafted mithril arm.

"For you," he explained. "If you are good at heart, then you can use it. It will mesh perfectly with what you have of your arm, and you will be able to use it just as you would your normal arm. It is called the Arm of Nyr."

"Thank you," she breathed, holding the wondrously light arm in her hand. "Is there any special way to attach it, or do I just put it on?"

The priest smiled, "Just stick it on where your arm ends."

Aedia was beyond elated. To not be crippled! She had only nearly lost her fight with the drow because of the loss of one of her arms. She had been unable to do many simple tasks with but one arm. She immediately set her stump of an arm down on the table, ready to put the mithril arm on.

But would she have as fine control over it as she did over her real arm? Would it, in truth, be a real replacement for her arm? It looked more sized for a large human man's thick arm than for a thin elven woman's…

And could she bear living with an arm made of mithril?

Unaware of the internal turmoil Aedia was going through, the priest pressed the end against her forearm, thinking her unable to do it with but one hand.

The feeling was rapture.

Divine magic flowed through her arm, spreading eventually throughout her body. She felt the holy magic especially at the end of her arm…The priest began a chant, but she ignored it, lost in the rapture…

Suddenly, she could feel her forearm and hand pressing against the table.

She looked down, and saw a real arm—exactly the same as her old arm. The mithril was gone.

It felt real to her as she ran her other hand along it. It moved as perfectly as it had before she lost it.

It was again a part of her body.

She had her arm again!

Endrin was overjoyed to hear of her gift from the priest. So overjoyed, in fact, that he made quite a proposal to her.

He wanted to marry her.

Without a pause, she accepted.

Their wedding was scheduled for a month later—on Highharvestide, the next major holiday. The pair was to be wed on the day of the autumn harvest—not a usual choice for either humans or elves, but it was the longest either could bear to wait.

But their betrothal was not an untroubled one.

Shadow's ice barrier had eventually melted under the sun, leaving her to be captured by Aedia, Endrin, and Anilla, while Mara and Shane kept a watchful eye.

Tebryn's trial had waited to commence until Shadow was freed, so as soon as the ice melted, and her frostbite cured with a priest's spell, she was brought to the courthouse.

The trial was a speedy one for such a long wait. After a short amount of time, Tebryn and Shadow were both sentenced to death—for murder, attempted murder, and a host of other crimes.

Aedia was glad that Tebryn was to get what he so richly deserved, but she was not so sure that Shadow warranted so harsh a punishment. She seemed to be some kind of servant to Tebryn, though a willing one. But because she was willing, she did indeed commit the crimes in question.

Aedia mused with the idea that perhaps Tebryn had Shadow as a slave. But as Tebryn and Shadow were marched down the aisle to their cells, Shadow leaned over and kissed Tebryn—hard, with passion: much like the kisses Aedia and Endrin shared.

That was that for that train of thought.

Aedia was in the back of the small crowd watching the assassins be hanged. Mara was perched above and slightly behind her, on a stand that had been set up for just that purpose; Endrin was, of course, beside her; Anilla, next to her unicorn, was nearby.

The noose was set around Tebryn's neck. He looked up, making direct eye contact with Aedia for some time. Her bones chilled at that harsh glare.

But it was Tebryn who broke the contest of wills. He lacked the necessary discipline and focus to outmatch the monk in that regard.

Shadow stood next to Tebryn, her gaze stony, emotionless. She was not clad in the combat gear Aedia had always seen her in before; instead, she, like Tebryn, wore loose, gray clothes supplied by the prison.

The nooses started to tighten. Aedia clenched a fist in her pocket.

But rather than being lifted up, dancing in the air, Shadow rolled forward, as did Tebryn.

Aedia instantly replayed what she had seen in her mind—a flash of silver, cutting across, snapping the rope halfway up.

She exploded into action, trying to intercept Tebryn and Shadow, who were going the same way—to the gate, right past Aedia.

The fleeing pair ran straight into the monk—or, more accurately, her hands.

Aedia's right arm, the one that was half Arm of Nyr, slammed into the assassin's chest with a punch harder than the elf had ever done before. At the same time, her left hand hit the half-tiefling with another punch—nowhere near as hard, but still hard enough to hurt badly.

The drow was sent flying back, literally. He landed on his back, scraping his elbows along the way.

On the ground, he grabbed a ring.

A shimmering portal appeared, which the assassin—and the shadowdancer, having recovered quickly—leapt through.

As the portal disappeared, Aedia took a risk by diving through.

She found herself on cold, hard stone, lying prone.

It was pitch black—total darkness, no light at all.

Except…

As the elf looked up, she saw a pair of glowing red eyes above her, about five feet off the ground.

Acting purely on instinct, the monk rolled to the left and grabbed someone's leg, bringing the person to the ground as well.

Two pairs of glowing red eyes were there now—one standing up, the other on the ground, not far from Aedia—judging by the leg in her hand, probably Tebryn's.

She rolled aside instinctually again, and heard the clang of metal on stone.

She grabbed Tebryn's slender arm, yanking it up as she leapt to her feet.

Her arm, the mithril one, shot out on a vague premonition. The curved, heavy blade scraped across it, screeching.

Aedia felt no pain.

Spinning her wrist, the monk wrapped it around the wooden handle and tugged.

The Arm of Nyr was stronger than she was used to, so she pulled to hard. The top edge of the blade went into her breast.

Gasping, the monk pushed the scythe back at its owner, then landed a particularly hard kick to the half-tiefling's stomach.

Acting on instinct, as all her moves in this lightless place were, she spun and stuck out her left hand.

The thin, fine-edged, curved blade cut her hand in both the palm and the fingers. She gasped as she felt the dark evils of the blade trying to suck her in, rip her very soul out of her body and force it into service in the blade…

Her hand shot away from the evil scimitar, then came around—blood flying behind it, she sensed, even though she couldn't see—to land a backfist on the assassin's face.

She let go with her other arm, and slammed an elbow into the assassin's free arm. That left her body perfectly set up for a left-footed sidekick to Shadow, so she did one.

Going into a spin, the monk tried to land an open-handed neck strike to Shadow, but missed her target.

She followed through with a roundhouse and then a back kick, followed by a spear-finger strike to the stomach.

Only the roundhouse hit. But with Aedia left in a forward stance, all her momentum forward, Tebryn decided to help her along.

As she finished the spear-finger, he shoved her forward, his hand and the Spectral Brand's hilt on Aedia's back. She stumbled forward—

Right into Shadow's scythe.

But her mithril arm came up, blocking the possibly fatal strike.

Endrin paced worriedly as he played his lyre, trying to coax the right type of magic out of his music. In a desperate—but brilliant—alteration on a song that anchored creatures to the current plane, he forced the portal his lover had gone through to open.

The shimmering blue portal appeared, and he was instantly through it.

Endrin and Anilla stumbled into the portal. A guard was trying to go through, but he hadn't made it there before the portal snapped shut once again.

Finding the area completely dark, Endrin strummed a simple tune of daylight out of his lyre, causing the instrument to shed light over the room.

Aedia was fighting with the drow assassin and his accomplice. Anilla promptly drew her longsword and rushed into the melee, but Endrin hung back.

Seeing the blood seeping from his lover's breast—and hand, he noticed—the bard began a more powerful song of healing. The monk's wounds closed, blood evaporated, and bruises disappeared, leaving her once more in top condition.

The drow and tiefling had no one to heal them, no one to come charging into the battle as reinforcements.

Aedia felt the wondrous power of her lover's music flow through her, closing her wounds, restoring vitality to her tired muscles.

She fought on with a restored vehemence, now that her friends had arrived.

Shadow's scythe spun around with her, trying to slice the elven woman in half.

Anilla put up her sword, attempting to parry the strong blow. But the force of it just blew straight through the thin sword.

But there was nothing there for her scythe to hit.

Aedia, as Anilla had charged into the fight, could now focus solely on the drow.

Her right arm came around in a hook. The Spectral Brand came up to parry, bit the blow had been a feint, and she slipped a left-hand jab in past his defenses.

The jab, though it was only a jab, was particularly powerful. It gave her enough momentum that Aedia felt she could safely pull her arm in and continue the momentum with a back hook kick, so she did.

She got her hand back away from the drow, but as her foot came down to slam into his shoulder, the dark elf stuck the curved blade in her way.

The fine-edged blade ripped through her leg, severing the muscle and cutting straight to the bone.

Aedia screamed.

It took all of her willpower to prevent the artifact from sucking up her soul into it. If it had been a fatal blow, there would be almost no doubt that she would be forced into the Spectral Brand. But as it was, a crippling—but not fatal—strike was just not enough to take the soul of Aedia Ilphukiir.

Endrin's healing song came quickly enough, reattaching her calf to the rest of her leg.

The monk managed a few good kits on the monk. Seeing that he would likely be defeated, the drow shouted one word—"_Illith!_"—and spun.

A large circle on the wall became glossed over in the pattern of a spiderweb. The web opened then, from the center and circling out, leaving pure blackness where it left.

Tebryn leapt through the portal, as did Shadow an instant after, as she shouted: "_Qistaertos!_" Aedia tried to jump through, but the web was closed by then, and she bounced off.

Then it became a wall once more.

"_Illith!_" she tried. When nothing happened, she tried "_Qistaertos!_"

No effect.

The circle didn't have an aura, so she couldn't attempt to break the lock. Even if she did, she suspected that, if successful, she would also destroy the gate.

She slumped to the ground.

**Epilogue**

Except for the escape of Tebryn and Shadow—Aedia knew their names from when Tebryn had assassinated Jaer—the time until their wedding was relatively uneventful.

The lovers were wed by the high priest of Lathander, a man who had helped them both many times, and was certainly worthy to do so.

Highharvestide was a day of celebration, which was only added to by the wedding of two of the town's current "heroes."

They left after for the Border Forest of Aedia's childhood, where they would spend the winter both among the elves and in Aedia's former small monastery.

The winter of the Year of the Banner was a wonderful one for the newly wed couple. They lived among the Fair Folk, who were happy to see anyone from Aedia's village (they hadn't known of any survivors, as they lived a good distance from Aedia's monastery) still alive. And they were especially appreciative of Endrin's music, a style of playing the lyre that ranged from incredibly chaotic—though beautiful—to perfectly ordered, wonderful melodies.

But it was when they were alone in Aedia's old monastery that they had the best time.

It was the day before Greengrass, the official first day of spring, that Aedia first found out she was pregnant.

Most elves would not have found out that they had conceived for several more months, as elven pregnancies often lasted upwards of two years to go through fully.

But the monk, with her deep understanding and control of her body, knew when she had been pregnant for but a month.

Running her hand over her tightly muscled stomach, not yet bulging even the slightest bit, she did feel life in there.

The elf was sitting next to a large window. She stared outside, wondering what her baby would be like.

As she called for Endrin, to tell him the wonderful news, she continued staring out.

The snow was melting, the blizzard had just ended a few days ago. And life was coming back to the forest. Birds chirped, and she was sure she saw a fox lurking in the woods.

Life was coming to the forest, just as it was coming to her baby.

Endrin rushed up. She took his hand and, not saying a word, ran it over her stomach.

It would be spring soon.


End file.
